Seagate Replaces CEO, Plans to Cut 800 Workers

In this file photo from Jan. 22, 2007, former Bill Watkins, then CEO of Seagate Technology, is shown...

In this file photo from Jan. 22, 2007, former Bill Watkins, then CEO of Seagate Technology, is shown at a meeting at Seagate offices in Fremont, Calif. Hard drive maker Seagate Technology said Monday Jan. 12, 2009 that it named Chairman Stephen J. Luczo to the additional posts of president and chief executive. Luczo, 51, succeeds Watkins, who will assist during the transition. Luczo and Watkins, 55, will also meet to determine what potential role, if any, Watkins will continue to have with the company.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)

(AP)

Seagate Technology has replaced its top two executives and said it plans to cut 800 jobs — 10 percent of its U.S. work force — as the hard drive maker endures a bruising slowdown in technology spending. Its stock fell more than 15 percent.

In a surprise move, the Scotts Valley-based company announced Monday that William Watkins, 56, Seagate's chief executive since 2004, and Dave Wickersham, 52, the president and chief operating officer, had both left the company, effective immediately. Seagate declined to make either executive available for comment.

The company also announced that it plans to cut 10 percent of its 8,000 U.S.-based workers. It has 53,000 workers worldwide.

A familiar face will fill the CEO slot. Stephen Luczo, 51, a former investment banker who served as Seagate's CEO from 1998 until 2004 amid a wrenching restructuring, will have to engineer another big turnaround to get the company back on track.

Wickersham's jobs will be taken by Robert Whitmore, 46, Seagate's executive vice president and chief technology officer.

Seagate is the world's largest maker of computer hard disk drives, with more than 30 percent of the global market. But its business has suffered badly because of the economic meltdown, which has sapped information-technology budgets and demand for new personal computers and servers that use Seagate's products.

Oversupply in the industry has also hurt Seagate and other disk drive manufacturers.

Luczo takes the reigns of a company whose stock price plunged more than 80 percent last year and that warned in December its fiscal second-quarter results would fall far below Wall Street's expectations. Seagate lowered its guidance for sales in the period by about $500 million, cautioning that slumping demand and price pressures were hurting the company more than it had anticipated.

Seagate, which is scheduled to report its full quarterly results Jan. 21, expects revenue of $2.3 billion to $2.6 billion. Its previous guidance was for $2.85 billion to $3.05 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect sales of $2.5 billion and a loss of 2 cents per share.