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Bundling features such as desktop virtualization and video conferencing in the workstation, HP is aiming at extending its leadership position
At a recent customer meet, HP showcased its workstation solutions. The company had on display, several of its workstation products with demonstrations of these systems would help address the needs of each segment. Among this was the Z800 workstation, with which the company aims to increase its hold on the Indian workstation market.
Speaking about the company’s latest workstation offerings in India, Anurag Gupta, Country Manager – Workstation, Personal Systems Group, HP India explains that the Z800 features a desktop virtualization solution by Parallels that can allow multiple platforms such as Windows and Linux to run within a single system.
He says that such a configuration can be used by customers who want to have more than one person working on a single application and address the issue of underutilization of assets. It can alternatively used by customers in mixed environments such as Windows and Linux where a single person tests these applications for their behavior in multiple environments.
The workstation also features the company’s recently launched SkyRoom which is based on high level video and image compression technologies developed by the company for NASA’s Mars Exploration mission. The solution allows users spread across different locations and geographies to collaborate on graphic designs and share inputs through the video conferencing.
This according to the company not only reduces the bandwidth requirement but also ensures security. The solution is currently limited to enterprise networks for both bandwidth and enterprise security reasons, and requires a minimum of 512 kbps connection for video conferencing between two users.
The use of this application is intended for organizations which would want to collaborate on graphical designs of products that they design and manufacture. With these designs being the intellectual property of the respective organizations, its security is most important. S. K. SIM, Director, and General Manager, Professional Workstations, Personal Systems Group, Asia Pacific and Japan, HP explains that the solution is designed to ensure the security of these designs while in transit during the collaboration sessions.
He says, “The 3D images and files reside on the organization’s data center. The entire data is not transmitted across the network each time. Only the changes made to the files are sent across translated as pixels at the receiving end. This not only ensures that the integrity of the file is maintained but also, security, since someone tapping into this connection would only find a stream of pixel data.”
Quoting IDC’s estimation, Gupta informs that HP currently owns a 63 percent market share in the overall desktop workstation market and looks to increase this number with these new offerings. The workstations are pegged at for usage, by what the company describes as Digital Content Creation (DCC) segment which includes, animation and gaming companies, broadcasting, print and publishing companies. However HP is also targeting other key verticals such as BFSI, Manufacturing, Oil and Gas, Defense and Education.
From the BFSI segment’s point of view, a lot of users in financial organizations have multiple machines and monitors for trading and other financial transactions. As opposed to high end 3D graphics this sector requires a similar level of computational power for crunching numbers and statistical analyses. According to the company a single workstation of theirs can support multiple displays while giving the computation capabilities that the sector demands.
The company has also been targeting the education sector by setting up Centers of Excellence (CoE) across major educational institutes that include a few Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and National Institute of Design (NID) campuses. Under specific programs with ISVs, application vendors and few customers, the company has set up around four such CoEs for free or at a subsidized rate which consists of a lab for up to 10 users and students are trained for using various design applications.
HP also has remote workstation products that it has been offering to Indian customers since the last four years. Called blade workstations, these workstations can act as a centralized system with users accessing the workstations through thin clients.
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