Sea-Front or Action-gate

June 25, 2005

Seagate Technologies' web site now indicates the company offers data recovery services. Further investigation shows the shipping address, the place to send your subject drive for data recovery service, actually belongs to ActionFront Data Recovery. Many may already be aware of this little tidbit, to others it may be a surprise.

When asked about their arrangement Seagate's Mike Hall responded, "The services are in trials with a limited number of customers at this time so, as with any other Seagate beta program, there's little we can share about them other than what appears on our web site." ActionFront's Ron Austin responded with a simple, "No comment". So much for gathering facts.

Hard disk drives wear-out by nature, a percentage fail prematurely, their storage content can be corrupted and often consumers neglect or are unaware of their responsibility to backup the data. Messages posted in forums and other comments I've received suggest that those who experience drive failures, place the blame for failure on the drive manufacturer. Subsequent occurrences almost always result in a "black-ball the brand" attitude by consumers. These people are not happy at the prospect of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to recover data. It's doubtful that a hard drive manufacturer offering such services will be well received.

Until this recent change hard drive manufacturers have not offered the service, presumably for liability reasons. Hence, the birth of the data recovery service industry. ActionFront is an industry leader that has, over the years, expanded at a fast pace. They are technically capable and have surpassed many competitors. They are also, quite obviously, veracious sales and marketing experts. I've always held the belief that if drive manufacturers offered data recovery services it would kill the independent shops. Kudos to ActionFront for such a prestigious achievement, with one caveat. It's always dangerous for a mouse to sleep with a lion.

Any hard disk drive manufacturer would be more qualified to perform data recovery services than an independent firm. They certainly have the knowledge, equipment and technology necessary. Why would Seagate need, or want, to align themselves with any data recovery service company? Is this arrangement profitable for Seagate? Does Seagate get access to competitive technology with this arrangement? Could this be a prelude to a Seagate buyout of ActionFront? If there is no intent to purchase ActionFront, will this adversely affect Seagate in the long-run? Does ActionFront just have an excellent inside connection with Seagate? If ActionFront does have an excellent inside connection with Seagate, what technologies or information has Seagate provided to ActionFront that other data recovery shops don't have access to? No comments and limited responses do allot to raise questions not to mention suspicion.

Some may feel that this union brings a certain amount of legitimacy to the data recovery service industry. That may be true from one point-of-view. From another point-of-view Seagate stands to lose goodwill if consumers perceive the company as taking advantage of them. There is no foreseeable benefit to the consumer, as there is no apparent motivation for ActionFront to reduce prices or improve service as a result of the alliance. For now there is only one clear winner, and that's ActionFront.

Richard K. Myers Owner/Webmaster http://www.data-recovery-hub.com

---

5 RAID Data Recovery Prevention Tips

If you have spent the time to increase your computer's... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan

Essentially, the plan addresses the who, what, where, why and... Read More

3 Simple Steps To Organize Your Critical Online Home Based Business Directory

If You are running an Online Work at home Business... Read More

Protect Yourself Before Your Hard Drive Crashes

Almost everyone who has used a computer has experienced a... Read More

The Importance of Data Backups

All computers and their components are subject to failure. In... Read More

How to Effectively Back Up Your Data

What to backup, and what to loseThe oldest "computer expression"... Read More

Backup -- But Where To?

We all know we have to backup regularly, but those... Read More

Hard Drive Crash? The Essential Data Recovery Report

Your worst nightmare just became a horrifying reality. You keep... Read More

Data Backup for Beginners

It's 10pm. Do you know where your data is?Data. Small... Read More

Do You Have The One Key Ingredient Necessary For Disaster Recovery?

It is not rocket science, we all know that we... Read More

The Seven Golden Rules Of Data Backups

Backups of company data are carried out for two main... Read More

Backup Your Data Or Lose Your Life!

Oh the perils of collecting those precious photos on your... Read More

How Secure Are Online Data Backups?

Processing DATA is what all businesses do. Protecting data is... Read More

Want To Beat The Odds? Disaster Recovery Planning is Essential

Statistics show two out of five businesses go out of... Read More

How To Limit Hard Drive Data Recovery Costs

With the value on information rising day by day, one... Read More

Computer Data Backup - Data Backup Solution Will Give You A Peace Of Mind

Imagine that you have been working on a file for... Read More

The Importance Of Email Backup

Viruses, software failures, power failures, human errors, hard drive failures... Read More

Data Recovery: Beginners Tips

Right now you probably in a lot of mental pain,... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - Selecting A Business Continuity Strategy

The risk analysis and business impact analysis have identified risks... Read More

Avoiding Hard Disk Data Recovery Services

As a home computer owner, one of the greatest threats... Read More

3 Ways Computers Can Hurt Your Ministry - Part 1 - Ineffective Data Backups

Our computers have become almost indispensable ministry tools. What would... Read More

5 Simple Tips to Prevent MS Access Database Corruption

It's important to understand that any time an Access client... Read More

Data Recovery - What Not to Do!

Data recovery is a tricky thing, and if you've somehow... Read More

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery - A Business Not a Technology Issue

Hackers, hurricanes, fires, flooding, power outages, denial of service attacks,... Read More

Disaster Recovery- Managing the Risk

Helping your business survive in the event of an unforeseen... Read More

Read This Now: Its Not If You Will Lose Your Data, Its When Will You Lose Your Data

With Adware, SpyWare, E-Mail Viruses, Java Script Viruses and Hardware... Read More

Data Recovery

Every person who uses a personal computer will eventually face... Read More

Backup Schmackup: Im Afraid, Very Afraid!

"Why should you be afraid?", I can hear you ask.I... Read More

HasYour Computer Hard Drive Ever Crashed? Are You Challenged by Backups?

The following scenario's have probably been repeated thousands of times,... Read More

Comparing Data Recovery Software

Software programmers recognize the importance of data files, and thankfully,... Read More

9 Things to Look for when Considering Data Backup Solutions

It's one thing to loose data and money because of... Read More

Backup 101 - How To Pick The Right Backup Software

Vision Backup 10 Enterprise is an advanced and easy-to-use backup... Read More

Did You Loose Your Windows XP Password? What Should You Have Done Before it Happened?

There is a common problem that happens with lot of... Read More