Kingston Technology Co., the top maker of memory products for computers, servers and consumer electronics, is putting out a call for entries for next year’s installment of its “SSD Destructo Series.”
The series is part of a viral marketing campaign on YouTube that the company created to show off the durability of its solid state drives.
The drives use flash memory chips to store data and have no moving parts, making them tougher than traditional disk drives and faster at some tasks.
The YouTube video shorts are filmed around Kingston’s campus in Fountain Valley.
Kingston wants submissions on how to destroy one of its solid state drives.
Last year’s “destructo” attempts included hitting them with a baseball bat, swinging at them with a golf club and toasting them with a blowtorch, among other fun activities.
The company plans to pick a grand prize winner judged to have the best idea. The winner will have the choice of receiving $3,000 or attending the shooting of the next series of SSD Destructo videos, which are set to premier in January.
Some 16 prizes will be awarded in all, including cash awards of $1,000 and $500, gift baskets and Kingston memory products.
Contestants can submit their ideas through Kingston’s solid state drive Facebook page.
Digesting Inventory
Makers of disk drives, including Lake Forest’s Western Digital Corp., are expected to see shipments stay flat or fall off slightly during the current quarter, according to a report on technology news website Digitimes.com.
Weak back-to-school demand has created a pileup of drives, Digitimes reported.
PC makers, the top users of disk drives, “will work on digesting the inventory in the fourth quarter, so they are likely to reduce their orders for the quarter,” said Rick Schafer, an analyst at Oppenheimer and Co. in Colorado.
Western Digital could have a hard time living up to the pace it saw during the first half of the year, when the drive industry saw surging demand from China, India, Russia and parts of Latin America.
Global drive shipments in the third quarter totaled about 160 million units, about the same level as in the second quarter.
The rising stockpiles of drives pushed prices downward, crimping Western Digital’s profits during the September quarter.
For the three months through Oct. 1, Western Digital reported sales of $2.4 billion, up 9% from the same period a year earlier.
The company posted $197 million in profits, down 32% from the year-ago quarter and beating analysts’ estimate of $186 million in profits.
Western Digital said it shipped 51 million drives during the quarter, up 16% from the year-ago quarter.
New Nest
The Irvine Incubation Center, an 11,000 square-foot space dedicated to housing fledgling technology companies, opened its doors earlier this month.
The site is in University Research Park, next to the University of California, Irvine. The center is set to house up to 20 startups.
The center was the brainchild of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce, UC Irvine, the city of Irvine and others with the idea of adding more technology jobs to the area.
“Our mission for the incubation center is to help foster more successful startups in Irvine and Orange County by providing resources and mentoring that allows the entrepreneur to reduce risk, increase positive outcomes and move toward corporate sustainability,” said Jeff Greenberg, Irvine Incubator Center president and cofounder.
The incubator is set to help startups with business advice, information on funding and lots of networking opportunities.
The center is looking for “companies with an eye on the future,” a spokesman said, “Whether it is technology, biotech, digital media, or something yet to be defined.”
Startups interested in applying to the incubation program can e-mail info@irvineic.org for information.
Bits and Pieces
Irvine-based Epicor Software Corp., a maker of business software for retailers, manufacturers and distributors, got a nod as the multinational company of the year in North America at the seventh annual International Business Awards, which were presented a few weeks ago at a gala ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey … Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment Inc. said “World of Warcraft: Cataclysm,” the latest addition to its massively popular “World of Warcraft” online game series, is set to hit stores Dec. 7. An expansion pack goes for $40 in stores and online. A special collector’s edition goes for $80 in stores … Fountain Valley’s Kingston ranked No. 6 in total revenue on Inc. magazine’s 2010 listing of America’s fastest-growing private companies. Kingston reported 2009 revenue of $4.1 billion. Inc.’s list ranked the top 5,000 private companies by three-year revenue growth through 2009 … El Segundo-based market research group iSuppli Corp. trimmed its chip global sales forecast on sluggish demand. ISuppli sees industry sales growing 32% this year to $302 billion, down from a previous forecast of $308 billion.
