Shugart worked for IBM's storage division for some time before he started Shugart Associates. I presume the news article referred to his work at that time.
IBM sold their hard drive manufacturing operations to Hitachi in 2003. The hard drive industry had become increasingly commoditized and highly competetive. Given the rapidly increasing demand for capacity and performance, I suspect that product life cycles were shrinking and R&D costs were skyrocketing. Some manufacturers (e.g. Micropolis) folded, some (e.g. Conner Peripherals) were absorbed, and some (e.g. Quantum) exited the hard drive business to focus on more profitable product lines.
Geoffrey Welsh I'm a cynic. Optimists say the glass is half full, pessimists say the glass is half empty, and cynics observe that our education system can no longer produce purchasing managers who can order the correct size of glass.