SINGAPORE -- Seagate Technology today said it would buy Maxtor Corp. in an all-stock deal worth $1.9 billion. An antitrust review will hold up the transaction until the latter half of 2006, Seagate CFO Charles Pope said on a conference call announcing the deal.

Chief executive Bill Watkins said Seagate wants Maxtor's customers, not any specific technology. "This is not a deal where we're acquiring a certain product," he reportedly told Reuters. "We want to buy their customer base, their revenue stream and layer it over our manufacturing process."

The acquisition will consolidate the disk-drive market. Seagate, which faced financial troubles and went private for a time in the 1990s, has about a 30% share of the disk drive market. Maxtor, which makes disk drives for desktop computers and counts Dell as its top customer, has a share of slightly more than 10%.

Pope said he does not expect the companies will need to shed any businesses in order to overcome antitrust laws.

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