This will affect at least some of Seagate's retail sales as Fabrik/Simpletech used Maxtor drives in their external enclosures. As a former dept. head of a big box consumer electronics chain, I saw how Seagate had a triple threat in sales of external drives. One was through their own brand Seagate. Second was through their brand Maxtor and third was stealthily through Fabrik/SimpleTech. Now that third leg is gone, as Fabrik will become a conduit for Hitachi Travelstar and Deskstar (formerly, of course, as IBM Travelstar and Deskstar) drives.

Ahhh...what a tangled web technology companies weave.