The company recently announced plans to slash its former warranty terms for bare drive products. Thus, consumer electronics, notebook and personal storage bare drives will soon feature a warranty of 3 years instead of 5, as Seagate offers now.

The new policy applies to all products purchased on or after January 3, 2009. Still, Seagate enterprise drives and Seagate and Maxtor external retail products will be excepted and will continue to have 5-year warranty periods.

“Seagate believes that the new warranty period and terms better reflect current industry standards,” the company stated.

Two questions come to mind:
1. Could Seagate be saying “we’re less sure of our products as of now”? or
2. Is this just a way to push up Christmas sales?