In a bid to boost both consumer and cloud storage businesses Seagate buys 65% of France-based LaCie, with a deal that values LaCie at around $186 million.
LaCie consumer and SMB storage products include USB HDDs, NAS, RAID appliances and optical appliances. It also has a cloud storage service (Wuala) and a strong presence in Apple-related storage.
The purchase also represents a move towards more international waters for the California-based Seagate-- unlike Seagate, Lacie is successful in the European channel.
LaCie chairman and CEO Philippe Spruch will join Seagate, where he will lead the company's consumer storage business.