Storage maker Seagate kicked off the week by removing CEO William Watkins from his post, as the company's Chief Operating Officer, David Wickersham, also resigned from the company on the same day.
Seagate Chairman Stephen Luczo will replace Watkins as CEO -- Luczo was CEO of the company prior to relinquishing the job to Watkins in 2004. The company's chief technology officer, Robert Whitemore, will replace Wickersham as COO.
“Seagate is a strong company and we are making measurable progress toward regaining our longstanding product leadership position across all markets. I look forward to working closely with Seagate’s talented employees around the world to build upon our success and accelerate the improvements we are making in our business," the new CEO said in a statement published by Seagate.
The announcements made by Seagate caught analysts and journalists off guard, with the company suffering from a struggling global economy that has hurt other storage manufacturers.
"Nobody seemed to see it coming," Robert Baird & Co analyst Jayson Noland told the San Jose Mercury News. "These are challenging times for lots of companies. When times get tough, it can cause a lot of emotion. It's just a difficult environment for everybody."
It seemed other analysts didn't see the executive shakeup coming as well, which has left analysts nervous about a rocky year for the technology sector. An analyst I contacted mentioned that he didn't see this move coming, and that it likely did blindside Watkins.
Seagate was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week in Las Vegas, where the company showed off several new products it hopes to have available later in the year. Watkins was at the show, and Seagate executives -- with Watkins agreeing -- admitted that the company will reduce its work force by about 10 percent in the next month.
Although the tech sector was hit later than other industries, the struggling economy has forced many major companies to reduce their workforce and cut costs.
