Disk Drives: Western Digital Reaps Rewards

Western Digital is back on top of the disk-drive game this year, winning 14 out of 15 criteria (with one tie) for an overall winning score of 81 in VARBusiness' 2002 Annual Report Card (ARC) survey,a full seven points higher than second-place winner Seagate, and 17 points better than last-place vendor Fujitsu. The company was an obvious choice for VARs, with only one second-place showing in the channel-conflict criterion.

Report Card Score

First place there went to Seagate, with a score of 74. Also, only one first-place tie occurred,with IBM for the product quality/reliability criterion. Western Digital, which didn't compete in 2001, also won the storage systems category in the 2000 ARC survey, but had strong competition from Maxtor and Seagate in that contest.

This year, however, Western Digital and its FireWire and ATA drives stood out, with all but one of its scores ranging between 75 and 93. The lowest score, 71, was in the marketing-support criterion. But even that "low score" was the highest in the criterion. That left Seagate, IBM and Maxtor in close competition for second place. All three shared a second-place tie for the richness of features criterion with a score of 77, and Seagate and IBM tied for innovation with a score of 77.

It was the importance rating of each subcategory, tied in with the loyalty subcategory scores, that pushed Seagate into the No. 2 spot. Each subcategory is given an importance rating out of a total of 100 percent in comparison with the other three subcategories. The partnership subcategory ranks the highest with a percentage rating of 29 percent. It was here that Seagate got a leg up, taking first place for channel conflict. For that criterion,

Seagate's score was 74, well above IBM's 59 and Maxtor's 64. In fact, that was the only criterion in the survey that Western Digital, with a score of 69, did not win.

In addition, Seagate scored high in the loyalty subcategory with a 72, six points above its next contender, Maxtor. Western Digital took first place with a score of 83. Loyalty is given a 23 percent importance rating.

"As far as responsiveness and availability [Seagate] is fantastic," says Ernie Rosenberg, vice president of operations at Minneapolis-based Equus Computer Systems, a Seagate reseller. "And from my perspective in marketing, it is willing to bend over backwards to help us," says Michele Grant, marketing communications manager at Equus.

Where Seagate falls behind is product innovation, coming in fourth with a score of 78.

"The No. 1 issue for Seagate is they are behind on capacity levels," Rosenberg says. "It puts them at a large disadvantage for certain high-capacity applications. Overall, their products are strong, but they can't compete. They see their weakness, but in my opinion, they are falling farther behind."

Overall, IBM and Maxtor share third place, with a score of 71. For Maxtor and its DiamondMax and Atlas 10KIII product lines, the tied third-place win is a mixed bag. The drive-maker moved up one notch from its last-place spot in the 2001 survey. And in 2000, when Western Digital took first place with a score of 78, Maxtor and Seagate tied for second place with a close score of 76.

IBM, however, has remained steady with its Deskstar and Travelstar products, climbing from last place in 2000, against Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate, Fujitsu and Quantum, to third place in 2001 and again this year.

Fujitsu fell hard this year, getting knocked down to last place from its second-place finish in 2001. The most outstanding factor appears to be its poor loyalty score of 50,33 points less than Western Digital, and even 15 points less than fourth-place loyalty winner IBM. And Fijitsu's placement in product innovation dropped from first place last year to last place this year.

Fujitsu also dropped from second place in 2001 to last place this year in both the support and partnership subcategories. The company only had two third-place wins,in the richness of features and channel conflict criteria. Its 13 remaining criteria scores ranked fourth or fifth.