Leading disk drive manufacturer Seagate Technology has appointed industry veteran Mr William Watkins as new chief operating officer and is reorganising some units. Mr Watkins, formerly in charge of the unit making the magnetic heads which read and write data on disk drives, will now head up the making of the drives, the platters used in them, and also the recording heads.

The Californian disk drive manufacturer is investing $30 million in a new disk-drive research centre in Pittsburg, less than three weeks after it fired chief executive officer and co-founder Mr Alan Shugart.