OCZ CEO Ryan Petersen resigns

[Termie]

Link: http://www.techspot.com/news/50190-...n-petersen-resigns-effective-immediately.html

The article speculates that this could have to do with the rumored buyout by Seagate that didn't come together.

Either way, perhaps this is a sign that there will be a new OCZ business model.

 

[exar333]

Link: http://www.techspot.com/news/50190-...n-petersen-resigns-effective-immediately.html

The article speculates that this could have to do with the rumored buyout by Seagate that didn't come together.

Either way, perhaps this is a sign that there will be a new OCZ business model.

Maybe they will start making awesome products again like they used to?

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-el-ddr-pc-3200-platinum-revision-2.html

 

[Phanuel]

Maybe they will start making awesome products again like they used to?

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-el-ddr-pc-3200-platinum-revision-2.html

I don't remember them ever making anything I'd ever trust. I thought the original buyout/management changeup was to make them more respectable, which clearly almost, but didn't really, happen.

 

[Hellhammer]

Apparently Ryan was the one blocking the sale of OCZ, so the board wanted him out. Of course this isn't official or confirmed by any means, but it does make sense. Ryan was one of the founders and it's definitely not easy to sell your own company from an emotional standpoint.

 

[Railgun]

Maybe they will start making awesome products again like they used to?

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-el-ddr-pc-3200-platinum-revision-2.html

It's not like Seagate is the end all, be all bad ass HDD/SSD manufacturer. I'll take OCZ as is any day over Seagate.

 

[Concillian]

Maybe they will start making awesome products again like they used to?

Ryan started OCZ in his garage. In those days he did awesome things like modify CPUs for OCing for people not confident or without knowledge to do it themselves. I remember buying a slot based Athlon from them when it was a company doing this kind of thing. They were doing great things then, and I think he should consider growing the company from a few forum based sales into the memory and SSD powerhouse it became a success.

The guy started like one of us, an enthusiast with an idea he took to market. While the company has essentially alienated it's roots and fell out of enthusiast favor as a result, I like to remember where it came from as a success. It has to have been a fun (and profitable) ride for Ryan, and I hope he is leaving in high spirits. I chatted enough with him on the phone / via email in the early days to know that he truly cared about what he was doing, even if he wasn't particularly good at customer service.

I wouldn't be surprised if the board forced him out, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he just decided it wasn't worth the effort anymore, as the company clearly has nowhere to go at this point. The combination of it's reliability issues and pricing and supply pressures put on by the larger players has OCZ on the ropes. Perhaps he just decided to hang it up since there's not really anywhere else to go but market out the IP.

 

[PaladinCavalier]

I remember when he was selling pre-tested Athlon's and listed lots and batches. I bought from him in the garage days when you could personally communicate with him. They did some innovative stuff back in the day. At one time their power supplies were really good as was their high end ram. I bought many of their products over the years including the original Vertex SSD.

 

[Phynaz]

Maybe they will start making awesome products again like they used to?

http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-el-ddr-pc-3200-platinum-revision-2.html

I think you're confused. OCZ products have always been crap. They had awesome marketing though, which made people think they were something special.

 

[Despoiler]

Not surprising. There are not very many public companies that are still run by their founders. Once you go public it's only a matter of time before the board replaces you unless you manage to retain majority voting power.

 

[blastingcap]

It's not like Seagate is the end all, be all bad ass HDD/SSD manufacturer. I'll take OCZ as is any day over Seagate.

I don't trust either brand. OCZ for obvious reasons (memory, PSUs not living up to rated specs, dismal SSD firmware issues, etc.), and Seagate for obvious issues (quality went down the hole after Maxtor acquisition, willful denial of 7200.11 Barracuda problems, etc.). If I had to choose one or the other, I'd go with Seagate because in all fairness they haven't messed up quite as badly after the 7200.11 debacle, but still, they are tax evaders (incorporating in Cayman Islands), and all else equal I'd rather buy Western Digital.

Micron I'm okay with, though their attitude towards customers could be better... the M4 5200 hour bug could have been handled better for instance.

 

[thelastjuju]

I dunno, I remember when OCZ was just selling RAM they had a pretty darn good reputation. It was like THE ram that would be suggested in threads asking for custom builds on message boards all over the place.

Then it seems they decided to take advantage of that good reputation and ventured out into manufacturing things they couldn't really get a grasp on.

I avoided OCZ for my SSD choice after minimal research, but did have an OCZ power supply last just under 3 years on me. Meanwhile, the Antec PSU in my HTPC is almost 10 years old.

The only dead components I've ever had were the OCZ PSU, one Gigabyte mobo, two Seagate Hard drives, and two WD's (but both were WD Greens). Seagate and OCZ account for half the pc parts that have ever died on me! If Seagate and OCZ really do get together, I hope people avoid them like the plague.

 

[peonyu]

OCZ has always sucked if you ask me, Ive had about 6 sticks of "high end" OCZ RAM back when they were supposedly good, and all of them ended up either outright dying eventually or becoming corrupt within a years time. Standard brands like Kingston or Corsair keep chugging along though.

 

[Elixer]

It's not like Seagate is the end all, be all bad ass HDD/SSD manufacturer. I'll take OCZ as is any day over Seagate.

Seagate's first move would be to slash warranty down to 1 year.

While I did have two OCZ SSD's fail, both times, they shipped a new SSD out pronto via air mail. Not too many companies will do that anymore.
They were the first with Sandforce, and then ended up with egg on their face because the firmware wasn't tested as well as it should have been, even though there are lots of people who didn't have issues.
I would love to know what their failure rate was for these things, I am thinking maybe 10-12%.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

OCZ Value VX was pretty friggen awesome stuff, but yeah, OCZ went way downhill after that for me

 

[Obsoleet]

OCZ was never good but had huge hype at one time (a long time ago). There are still people who go for their SSDs because they're cheap.

 

[hans007]

I sold 800 agilent Arctic coolers to Ryan when he started ocz as a yahoo store.

He was just some guy at north wind computers then who wanted to start ocz. I was in college. Basically my fan profit bought me my first car. So yeah thanks Ryan!

 

[Termie]

I remember when he was selling pre-tested Athlon's and listed lots and batches. I bought from him in the garage days when you could personally communicate with him. They did some innovative stuff back in the day. At one time their power supplies were really good as was their high end ram. I bought many of their products over the years including the original Vertex SSD.

I sold 800 agilent Arctic coolers to Ryan when he started ocz as a yahoo store.

He was just some guy at north wind computers then who wanted to start ocz. I was in college. Basically my fan profit bought me my first car. So yeah thanks Ryan!

These stories are pretty awesome. Sounds like the guy was an enthusiast just like us, but turned his passion into a big business. Props to him. Hope he finds another path after OCZ.

 

[Rvenger]

I honestly think after all these years, they finally got the SSDs right. lol (Vertex 4 and Agility 4)

 

[razel]

I hope the best for Ryan. If he was this successful, he'll do even better whatever he does next. I have a feeling the OCZ brand will just become a nameplate for Seagate. The good news is Seagate has been around forever and is a historically more competently run company. Their QA and experience with storage is vast. Even better their retail channels reach into Office Depot/Staples/Target and those stores know how to clear out inventory! Their clearance deals are NUTS! Last month I bought a Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0 1TB portable for $37. This is the one with the detachable adapter. They had two. Of course I got both and tossed it up on ebay.

 

[exar333]

I think you're confused. OCZ products have always been crap. They had awesome marketing though, which made people think they were something special.

Maybe you are too young to have built Athlon 64 builds? Those OCZ plat rev 2 were the BEST RAM you could get back in the day. The TCCD modules (which were most of the plat rev 2s) could OC very well, and had crazy timings for the day. You could hit 2-2-2 1T at 400mhz+, which was pretty much impossible on any other modules then. They were pretty affordable too.

The VX gold memory was also VERY fast, and would take insane voltage levels.

OCZ had some awesome stuff back in the old days when it was a tweakers company.

 

[Concillian]

This outlines what Ryan used to do (before GFDs became more common):

http://www.highspeedpc.com/slot_a_overclocking.htm

That's what OCZ grew from. They actually did do cool and innovative things in the beginning. They were also one of the first OC-centric boutique memory brands.

Like I said previously, it eventually alienated the original target audience, but Ryan was once a forum geek and enthusiast just like the people who regularly browse the CPU / OC forum and HardForums and such.

I find it hard to believe those who are saying that OCZ products have always been crap are old enough to remember what OCZ was doing in the Slot-A Athlon days. While there is no defending what they have done in the past couple years, to see the company grow from the vision of one enthusiast to what it was at it's height is still impressive to me. I wish Ryan well in his future endeavors or just retiring and living off of the hard work that took him from what was an entry level college student type job to the very likely "set for life" position he is in today. I didn't agree with all of OCZs decisions, but that doesn't mean I can't be impressed with the what he managed to accomplish in ~12-15 years or so.

 

[exar333]

This outlines what Ryan used to do (before GFDs became more common):

http://www.highspeedpc.com/slot_a_overclocking.htm

That's what OCZ grew from. They actually did do cool and innovative things in the beginning. They were also one of the first OC-centric boutique memory brands.

Like I said previously, it eventually alienated the original target audience, but Ryan was once a forum geek and enthusiast just like the people who regularly browse the CPU / OC forum and HardForums and such.

I find it hard to believe those who are saying that OCZ products have always been crap are old enough to remember what OCZ was doing in the Slot-A Athlon days.

Yeah, they had some cool and innovative stuff back in the days. You paid a premium, but they had some pretty cool binned video cards too. This was pretty nice, especially if you planned to WC or do a high-end air-cooling solution.

Their 'value' RAM was kind of their pariah, but they had some awesome lines of other memory.

Also, their customer service was really good too. I remember getting 4 sticks of VX memory and had some issues with 2 of them on my board. They worked with me to get it fixed, and even offered to provide replacement products equal or better to that without cost to me. I built multiple machines with used plat rev 2 sticks, and they ran like a dream. They would even do a check for you to ensure you got matching RAM modules to what you already had (not just a model# match). I don't think anyone does that anymore. :/

 

[Phynaz]

Maybe you are too young to have built Athlon 64 builds? Those OCZ plat rev 2 were the BEST RAM you could get back in the day. The TCCD modules (which were most of the plat rev 2s) could OC very well, and had crazy timings for the day. You could hit 2-2-2 1T at 400mhz+, which was pretty much impossible on any other modules then. They were pretty affordable too.

The VX gold memory was also VERY fast, and would take insane voltage levels.

OCZ had some awesome stuff back in the old days when it was a tweakers company.

I was building Z-80 machines in the 70's.

OCZ was and is garbage, and I believe even Anand said so. I don't know if the site goes back that far. Maybe I'll take a look-see.

They were a joke, and used marketing to make kids think they were cool and elite.

I noticed in your post you said nothing about reliability. Their SSD's are fast too. They just happen to be fast crap.

 

[bryanW1995]

I'm one of the biggest OCZ haters here, but I can't say that this is good news for the company. Ryan built that company from the ground up, and he's poured his heart and soul into it for years. He's taken a ton of heat over the years from us because he couldn't hang with intel/samsung/etc and their $$ billions. Hopefully, they end up selling to Seagate and he gets a humongous payday. If not, then OCZ will flounder indefinitely and likely go bankrupt.

Good luck Ryan.

 

[exar333]

I was building Z-80 machines in the 70's.

OCZ was and is garbage, and I believe even Anand said so. I don't know if the site goes back that far. Maybe I'll take a look-see.

They were a joke, and used marketing to make kids think they were cool and elite.

I noticed in your post you said nothing about reliability. Their SSD's are fast too. They just happen to be fast crap.

Hmm. Odd that Anand says the 'Platinum Revision 2' RAM stands head and shoulders above the others. How does that foot taste?

Edit: Never said their SSDs were any good. My point was they had some good stuff back a number of years ago. I don't touch a SSD from them at all...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/1415/20