Portland; électronique d2 acquires NATI, a repair and maintenance company; LaCie launches range of high-end 21" monitors and colour management devices. 1998 LaCie acquires ASP Technologies, a maker of Macintosh clones. The name "LaCie" replaces " électronique d2" as the worldwide brand name of the group. 1999 LaCie disposes of NATI. 2000 Establishment of the Australian subsidiary; launch of the PocketDrive, a 2.5" peripheral disk drive. 2001 Creation of the Japanese subsidiary; launch of the 18-inch flat panel monitor and DVD players. 2002 Launch of the Fusion CD-RW. 2003 Launch of 500 GB external Hard Drive: LaCie Big Disk; portable drives designed by F.A. Porsche line of storage solutions; first Triple Interface Hard Drives. 2004 1 TB external Hard Drive the LaCie Bigger Disk. 2009 LaCie acquires Caleido, a Peer to peer storage start-up, with their product named Wuala. 2012 Seagate announces plans to purchase LaCie for $186 million US Dollars, pending regulatory review. 2014 Seagate acquires Lacie and is now working on merging both companies. Products LaCie's original business was external SCSI hard drives, but its range has expanded over the years to include early CD writers, some of the first DVD drives, magneto-optical drives, SyQuest drives, tape backup, RAID arrays, and mobile USB and FireWire drives. Designers During the 1980s, little attention was paid to design aesthetic of computers and peripherals to it. Design – if any – was minimalistic, and tended towards beige metal boxes with no frills. Because d2's original target market was Apple Macintosh users – many who tended to work in creative, artistic professions – such as designers, printers, digital video artists, etc., d2 tailored its products much more carefully – by offering "designer drives" to satisfy the tastes of these "content creators" than other manufacturers were doing. Prior to the électronique d2 buyout in 1995, Ziba Design, in Portland Oregon, designed the majority of LaCie's products, including the award winning Joule tower, the Cirrus and the Tsunami drive. By 1995 LaCie had won awards for industrial design for every external storage product they introduced. In Paris, France, électronique d2 began to make a name for itself as early as 1991 by hiring designers like Philippe Starck and Neil Poulton. The emphasis was on ergonomics, distinctive moulding and some radically different designs. The French designer Philippe Starck designed three products for the company: "K1", "Apollo" and "Tokyo". These three "toaster" drives were manufactured in