Seagate is a company with you may be familiar with through their partnerships with Apple. Apple stores in the United States sell storage systems made by the company. Seagate serves business and enterprise customers for the most part and does very little in the retail end of business.

Today Seagate has announced its intention to Acquire Paris-based company LaCie, also a provider of digital storage systems. The purchase will help Seagate build up its consumer-based offering and expand the company into countries were the brand currently has very little reach.

Rocky Pimentel, Seagate’s chief marketing officer comments on the acquisition of LaCie:

“LaCie developed channels that Seagate has not adequately served, especially Japan, where it’s tough to compete if you are not a (domestic) company,”

“It will help take us to a whole new level. LaCie is a premium brand.”

Seagate purchased a controlling share of LaCie for $186 million. The purchase comes at a critical time, as consumer demand has grown for external storage solutions with the rising popularity of digital imaging, and other data creation. By joining forces the two companies will have the financial resources and technology to capitalize on upcoming technology trends.

Pimentel explains:

“The financial resources we have will enable them to be aggressive in ways they could not previously afford.”

“This is more about future market opportunities than the present,”

“It will allow us to build adjacent storage services and related products for the consumer and small-business market.”

Currently Seagate is controlling about 65% of LaCie, but they have plans to buy up more as soon is the deal is approved by the government.