Posted 07/19/2012 | by Brad Chacos




Here's an interesting tidbit for those readers who were wondering why the two biggest players in mechanical hard drives have yet to seriously jump into the SSD waters: OCZ's shares are currently spiking after insider rumors claimed that Seagate and Micron are considering buying out the company.

Seagate is said to be the most likely buyout candidate. Fudzilla was the first to report that OCZ may be on the market; Reuters ran with the story and got FBN Securities analyst Shebly Seyrafi to pony up the following tasty tidbit:

"I'm hearing the same rumors ... I can only say that after the last quarter, when OCZ's cash situation became more challenging, they would be more willing to enter into a deal."

Bloomberg reports that OCZ's quarterly results were towards the lower end of the company's previous estimates, partly because of cash flow woes and other issues stemming from the supply chain. At times, OCZ was rumored to be simply unable to afford to build SSDs as quickly as consumers were willing to buy them. Seagate's massive pull and mountains of cash could help prevent those types of problems going into the future, while the benefits OCZ would bring to SeaGate (or anyone else, for that matter) is fairly obvious.

The current stock market price tag for OCZ is hovering around $375 million after the rumor-fueled spike in share prices. Fudzilla expects Seagate to offer much more than for the company. It also says OCZ will continue to operate as a separate brand or company if purchased.

Do you think that a Seagate acquisition of OCZ would help both companies, or would there be unintended consequences for one party or the other?