History (1999): Seagate Strangely Invested Undisclosed Sum in iCompression

Seagate Technology has invested an undisclosed sum in iCompression, which should afford it a minority participation in the firm’s operations.

The Santa Clara, CA-based firm designs a processor that can compress MPEG-2 video and audio, as well as carrying out multiplexing from 2 sources.

Why this cash outlay? The official reason seems somewhat vague at this point: “to develop a new line of connected consumer electronic products for video and audio applications.”

Perhaps a future HDD product with an integrated compression chip?

Recently, ATI Technologies integrated the iCompression product in its Set-Top-Wonder.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 139 on August 1999 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.