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Tobias, we imagine that Seagate must be kicking themselves now, can you share any thoughts?
We have always had the policy not to comment on market rumours and there have been plenty over the years. OCZ Storage Solutions is now part of the Toshiba Group and with that we have direct access to NAND, I personally couldn’t have wished for a better company to acquire the assets of OCZ Technology.
At CeBIT last year, OCZ was firmly in the business zone. With the serious nature of Toshiba’s reputation plus the OCZ reputation for marketing and performance – we wanted to know which markets the new entity will find easiest to attack.
Is your goal to be best for gaming, professional or enterprise customers?
Our goal is to grow our market share in the consumer segment and continue to increase our footprint in the enterprise space as well. Being a fully integrated organization with our own controller, firmware, software suite and direct access to NAND flash will enable us to achieve these goals.
We wanted Tobias' take on the competition. Again, as an independent observer, it's hard to see how anyone outside (a) the real manufacturers and (b) the top brands like SanDisk and Kingston, can win in the SSD market.
Do you expect a ‘clean out’ of the non-manufacturer/non-patent-holding brands?
Over the past year we have already seen a market consolidation both in the consumer and enterprise space.
The SSD market continues to experience extraordinary growth and I agree with analysts from IDC and Gartner that there will be only a few brands in the SSD market.
There are only a few ‘brands' out there that have access to a NAND fab, and even fewer that have made the investment to bring up in house controller technology.
As the NAND continues to evolve, the need for technology that takes advantage of all the features and unlocks the full potential of next generation NAND will be even more key. We believe that in this regard OCZ can offer a differentiated highly compelling solution.
What do you think will be the most surprising/dynamic area in 2014?
There are a lot of exciting and dynamic areas within technology. Obviously I am first of all looking forward to being part of the Toshiba Group as OCZ Storage Solution and the possibilities that gives us to grow in the SSD market.
Aside from that, I am obviously a technology enthusiast, while I follow the entire industry closely, some of the segments I am personally interested in the most are technologies that are going to continue changing our lives in the near future: social media in general, the wearable market, 3D printing and smart devices.
