The rumoured purchase of OCZ by Seagate has been met with mixed messages across the channel.
Some fear if the acquisition of the SSD maker goes ahead, it may cause “rifts” in the supply chain, whilst others have described it as “positive” for their businesses and their resellers.
The comments come as Fudzilla reported that Seagate had beat other interested parties, including Micron, to the rumoured $1 billion purchase.
However, although the acquisition will be a good thing for Seagate, giving it the foot it needs into the buoyant SSD consumer market, the channel isn’t so sure.
One told ChannelBiz: “It depends where Seagate is going with this.
“If it plans to keep the two businesses separate then there’s not a knock on effect in the supply channel. We’ll do our bit and OCZ’s disties will do theirs.
“However, if it decides to merge the businesses and use just a single supply chain, which I suppose makes sense economically and for simplicity, then there will be a major shake up.
“Being a Seagate distributor gives us an edge as we’ve been shipping its branded goods for a while. However, if it decides to push on SSD then it may move everything over to some of OCZ’s chain. It’s all up in the air but we’re sure we’ll have more to say once and if the deal has been confirmed.”
Others were a little bit more positive, already planning out their ideal situation.
“If it all goes through the purchase will mean we, and other distributors will be able to make a move into the SSD market, ideally under the Seagate umbrella,” one Seagate distributer told ChannelBiz.
“However, there are lots of things that could cause rifts in the chain. It may also put more pressure on us to ship more, at no extra cost to the company. We’ll have to see how it goes.”
Dave Stevinson, director at VIP Computers, which became an authorised Seagate distributor last month, was however more positive: “It makes natural sense,” he told ChannelBiz.
“Seagate is the leading storage company and if they were to acquire OCZ, it would be positive for VIP and our resellers.”
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