InformationWeek

December 8, 1997

Graphic Choices

Digital joins charge to lure Apple users with Intel-, Alpha-based PC workstations

C vendors are thirsting after "creative content" markets traditionally dominated by Apple Computer and Silicon Graphics Corp. Digital Equipment is the latest vendor to introduce a system aimed at graphic artists, animators, desktop publishing, and video applications.

Digital is offering an unusual twist on the PC workstation theme: The company's new Creation Studio machine comes in an Intel version based on the Pentium II 300-MHz processors or a 500-MHz Alpha system, both offered at roughly the same price, says Reese Gautschi, product manager for the Creation Studio. Both are aimed particularly at customers who use Digital servers for back-end processing in graphics-intensive applications, he says. "We found that a large number of our customers use Digital in the back office while they use other vendors for the graphics appli cations. With this offering we're giving them the capability to have a single platform," he says.

A Creation Studio system begins at $4,995 for a system with either a 300-MHz Intel processor or a 500-MHz Alpha processor with 64 Mbytes of SDRAM, a 24X CD-ROM drive, an Iomega Zip drive, and storage of up to 27 Gbytes. Digital recently cut the price of Alpha microprocessors, making them more competitive with Intel systems, and the price of this system reflects those changes, Digital officials say.

Digital is working with traditional Apple and SGI partners, such as Quark and Adobe, in developing this product. That's hardly surprising, says Peter ffoulkes, workstation analyst at Dataquest, a research firm in San Jose, Calif. "Apple and SGI still have a good hold on the market, but everyone is offering an alternative with their workstation platforms," he says. Both Adobe and Quark are seeing their NT business grow rapidly, analysts say.

But it will be some time before design and other graphics-intensiv e applications become as functional on NT/Intel machines as on Unix or Apple systems, says Boris Elisman, marketing manager for performance desktop computing at Hewlett-Packard, which recently introduced its Kayak line of PC workstations. "You can get the major applications to move fairly rapidly," says Elisman, "but there are a lot of plug-ins and software that work with those packages that may take some time" to become available on PCs.

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