HP launches strategic alliance with Avid Technologies

BANGALORE: Hewlett-Packard India has announced a strategic alliance with Avid Technologies to address the fast growing Digital Content Creation (DCC) market in India. Under the new alliance, both companies will work together to develop comprehensive solutions for this market segment, which according to a research conducted by Frost & Sullivan, crossed the $35-million mark in 1998. Of this, the market for NT hardware in DCC is estimated at $15 million, growing at around 25 per cent compound annual growth rate.

HP's Visualize workstations provide users the unique advantage of doing both editing and animation on the same system since these support both OpenGL and Direct Draw. According to Sandeep Kapoor, Business Unit Manager, TCBU, Enterprise Accounts Solutions Organisation, Hewlett-Packard India, "The main drivers behind the phenomenal growth of the Indian A/V post production equipment market are a very small section of buyers namely the large post-production studios." This market segment, according to Mr Kapoor, has very special requirements because of intermittent working cash flow and the need for instant support as these are revenue generating machines, since most of the post-production houses work on an hourly basis. With a view to address these special needs, HPI has announced the series of initiatives, including a special leased financing program and direct support to important customers, informed Kapoor.

Softimage 3D version. 3.8 SP2, a new release includes mental ray v.2.1 rendering software that offers improved image quality and significantly faster previewing and rendering when run on HP's Visualize workstation. "We have found HP's Visualize workstation as ideal platform for our software" said Nikki Bridgman, Product Specialist of Softimage for Europe, Middle East & Asia, Avid Technologies. Shaf Broadcast, leading DCC player will provide solutions based on HP platform. Shaf Broadcast is the distributor in India for Avid.