Jim Zafarana: “la serie Z de HP responde mejor que cualquier otra a las necesidades de gráficos HD y 3D”

In this interview with Panorama Audiovisual, the vice president and general manager of HP's commercial solutions business unit analyzes the current situation of the workstation market, its growth potential and the possibilities that the new HP stations offer for the broadcast and post-production market. .

HP has enhanced its Z line of desktop workstations with four new models with which it reinvents this category, giving it a renewed design and adding more power, from the power supply to the motherboard. Thus, the HP Z820, the HP Z620, the HP Z420 and the Z1 – the world's first all-in-one workstation – incorporate the advantages provided by Intel Xeon processors and Nvidia Quadro graphics cards. The vice president and general manager of HP's commercial solutions business unit, Jim Zafarana, reveals in this interview the main details of the new range of workstations from the Silicon Valley multinational.

What is the current situation of the workstation market?

The workstation market has two parts: desktop workstations and mobile workstations. Both have experienced very rapid growth in recent years. Specifically, desktop workstations represent around 74 or 75% of the market in unit value and mobile workstations the rest.

The global market has been growing in recent years at around 18% annually in unit value, a growth that has been very healthy and even faster than that of the conventional PC market. HP has become a major part of the market, growing faster than the overall industry average, two to three times faster.

We have just received the results for the 4th quarter of 2011. For the first time in the history of this industry, we have exceeded 50% market share in both desktop and mobile workstations, as well as in the total. That also includes Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which means we are strong everywhere.

What distinguishes HP from the rest of its competitors?

The fact of having a large product portfolio and a great organizational structure. Our customers tell us that we have the best quality. We are trying to promote the industry, so that workstations are very configurable, very useful. We are providing our clients with the tools to do what they need to do in a professional environment.

We have designed the Z1 line for the professional user. We decided that we were not going to build a consumer technology product, but a professional product. We focus on professional applications. When you think about it that way, you have to think that Adobe has optimized Nvidia's graphics software, which is why it has Autodesk. For those users who need reliability, we went with ECC memory and Intel Xeon chips, which give it that performance advantage. These users also need high performance, highly reliable disk access, so we put in a RAID configuration. They have to burn Blu-DVD discs in real time, so we put in Blu-Ray. Professional sound engineers want professional sound, so we added that capability.

How important is R&D in the HP workstations area?

A lot. The first step is to carry out research to make decisions about a specific project in a series of interviews with our clients from different markets, in all industries worldwide. We listen to our customers and integrate the information collected, and then carry out innovative projects based on this information.

In Z series of products, we spent two years doing this research, and we understood the market situation. As we all know, the workload of workstation customers is very large, they may have to work for several months with applications such as high-quality graphics, 3D, etc., and HP's Z series product line responds better than any other to those needs. HP wants to create value for its customers, to build a strong platform to help them achieve global standardization of their operations.

A distinctive feature of HP workstations is the extent to which they are developed in partnership with component suppliers. Part of the strength of these alliances is that at a technical level, it is a relationship of equals. Thirty years ago we did not have standard components, we have had to develop our own CPU, graphics controllers, motherboards, the chassis... This is a vertical business that requires a very high investment.

When the industry moved, and Intel, Nvidia and Microsoft entered the market, we were able to develop our business. We have a team that knows how everything works, so when we are working with Nvidia, I have someone on my team who works as an equal with Nvidia, and has a deep understanding of the graphics topic. We test applications on a graphics card, and we are able to provide feedback to Nvidia six months before they launch the card. And the same thing happens with Intel.

If you ask both companies who their technology partner with the deepest technical knowledge is, they're going to tell you it's my team. I have very competent people here, who have gone through many transitions, many technologies, and I think that shows in the products.

What are the main characteristics of the new workstations for the broadcast industry and what advantages do they provide to professionals in this sector?

The new Z line of HP workstations is fully functional, from the power supply to the motherboard. The multiplier effects of multicore processing on HP workstations are transformative, turning hours into seconds, days into minutes, and years into quarters.

Early studies show that an HP Z can recover the investment made in a surprisingly short period thanks to performance and productivity gains. The design of the workstations is completely modular, they can be assembled and disassembled without using a screwdriver and not a single cable is visible.

HP is committed to providing our customers with market-leading graphics solutions. Broadcasters are increasingly looking for greater performance in the area of ​​high definition and graphics development is an area in which HP workstations have a clear advantage over the competition. As more professionals demand greater graphical power for the most demanding applications, they will realize that they need great performance in rendering and 3D graphics. Nvidia Quadro graphics deliver enhanced display capabilities for creative professionals with our new workstations.

HP is a systems supplier to many of Hollywood's animation and special effects companies, such as Dreamworks Animation, Weta Digital and Industrial Light and Magic, which use HP workstations to achieve incredible, life-like images. What can we expect in the future? How far can they go?

Further away. It is evident that in the broadcast industry a combination of visual effects, graphics and 3D applications will continue to be carried out to obtain increasingly realistic images in films.

With the current situation of economic crisis or recession that we are going through, what future prospects do you see for the workstation market in the coming years?

HP has decided to complete the update of its Z series desktop workstation product line at this time, in a very difficult economic environment, committing to improve its products and services. The current situation is quite unstable, but I think it will improve. I believe that the demand for workstations is going to increase, and even in periods of financial crisis, there are always critical areas of work such as healthcare, design, analysis, development and entertainment production that need workstations. The way to improve or grow in the market is through innovation.

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