Hollywood, Calif. – Back when Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) was founded by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in their garage, one of their first major product sales was an audio oscillator that helped Disney make the groundbreaking film Fantasia.
HP returned to those Tinsletown roots Tuesday to refresh its Z series workstation line-up with the latest Intel Westmere technology and to launch the Z200 small form factor workstation, which the vendor hopes will open up new ground on the entry-level end of the workstation market for HP and its channel partners.
In addition to the Z200SFF and the Z-series workstation refresh, HP also introduced the EliteBook 8740w, a 17” mobile workstation with an HP DreamColor Display to allow design professionals a degree of mobility while keeping their computing power.
Intel’s new six-core, 32nm Xeon 5600 series processors are now available on HP’s Z800, Z600 and Z400 workstations, while for the Z200 minitower and small form factor models, customers can choose between Intel’s Core i3 and i5 series dual core options, or Intel Xeon 3400 series-based quad core options.
“We’re very excited about the capabilities that this workstation generation brings, with six cores and 12 processing threads per processor,” said Thor Sewell, director, workstation business strategy, data centre group with Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) “It gives workstation users across many different industry segments an opportunity to not only increase their performance in the specific applications they’re using, but also improve the performance of their workflow.”
The Z200SFF supports up to 16GB of ECC and up to 2TB of high-speed storage, includes professional 2D and 3D graphics options, and has an89 per cent efficient power supply. It is also qualified for the standard workstation applications from vendors such as Adobe and AutoCAD.
“It incorporates all the characteristics of a classic workstation design, including high performance professional graphics, high levels of reliability including ECC memory, and all of the other attributes you’d expect in a workstation,” said Terry Pilsner, vice-president, research and development for HP’s global workstation business. “The target market is for those people that don’t have a lot of space in their environment, that need to have something that’s very quiet. It also uses less power. It’s a great solution for customers in the entry-level space that don’t need the ultimate in performance, but need professional performance to do very complex things.”
It will also open up a new segment of the market that previously wouldn’t have considered workstations — which can offer more partner margin potential around professional services — a possibility, said Jim Zafarana, vice-president and general manager of HP’s global workstation business.
“We think this is really going to let the channel expand the market for performance,” said Zafarana. “One thing that will set you apart in the eyes of your customers is HP Skyroom, HP’s video conferencing tool that’s included free on every workstation. It’s another way to add value to your customer base.”
Another good fit for the small form factor Z200 will be the OEM space said Ira Weiss, category business manager, workstations, point of sale and thin clients for HP Canada.
“We think a great opportunity is going to be in the OEM market, where we believe the small form factor will fit very neatly within a lot of applications where workstations are needed as part of a solution,” said Weiss.
In addition to the refresh of its other Z-series workstations with the latest Intel processor offerings, as well as improved memory and graphics options, HP also launched its newest mobile workstation, the EliteBook 8740w.
A range or Intel processors are supported, including the Core i7 Extreme edition, and up to 16GB of memory is supported as well. It includes USB 3.0, an optional backlit keyboard, and the 17” display utilizes HP’s DreamColor technology for the first time on a mobile PC, to ensure the colour displayed matches the colour printed. On the graphics side, the 8740w offers a choice of the ATI FirePro M7820 with 1GB of GDDR5 video memory or the NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M or NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M – both with 1 GB GDDR3 video memory.
Efrain Rovira, director of HP’s mobile workstations unit, said HP sees strong channel opportunity with the 8740w for customers that need workstation power, but in a portable form factor.
“A lot of the engineers – they need very powerful systems to do their design work, and they need mobility,” said Rovira. “A lot of the engineering work today is done on 2D, but it’s quickly becoming a 3D world. They’re going to need to change software, and they’re going to need higher performing systems.”
Weiss added the Canadian market has been a strong adapter of mobile workstations to date.“Canada is actually leading the North American market as far as the adoption of mobile workstations, and we’re hoping that our new workstations, including the new 8740w with DreamColour display, will continue that leadership,” said Weiss.
The Z200SFF will be available worldwide April 5th, with pricing starting at US$799. The refreshed Z400, Z600 and Z800 are available now, with pricing starting at US$929, US$1,579 and US$1,799, respectively. Finally, worldwide availability for the EliteBook 8740w is expected in April, with pricing starring at US$1,999.