HP Extends UNIX Server Leadership with New Offerings

HP Extends UNIX Server Leadership with New Offerings, Awards and Performance Benchmarks

HP Continues Momentum in All Segments of UNIX Server Market

PALO ALTO, Calif., March 6, 2002

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP) today announced significant developments in all segments of its UNIX® server lines. Today's announcement includes world-record high-end server benchmark results, customer wins and multiple industry awards for HP 's midrange servers and the introduction of new high-performance entry-level and midrange servers -- all demonstrating HP's continued momentum in the UNIX server space.

Entry-level

HP has raised the stakes in the entry-level UNIX space by introducing the PA-8700 processor into both its one- and two-way UNIX servers while dropping prices as much as 58 percent to start at an estimated U.S. street price of less than $1,000.(1) The entry-level HP Servers rp2430 and rp2470 are ideally suited for business and Internet applications for distributed sites and branch offices of large enterprises, as well as telcos, service providers and mid-market companies.

Based on HP's PA-8700 processor, the HP Servers rp2430 and rp2470 are aggressively priced against comparable application servers from Sun and offer superior system performance.(2) The rp2400 series' 2U design also offers better performance density with half the height of Sun's 1- to 2-way offering.

"The HP Servers rp2430 and rp2470 offer the best performance, high availability and performance density of any entry-level UNIX solution on the market," said Mark Hudson, director of worldwide marketing, HP Business Systems and Technology Organization. "Integrating the PA-8700 processor into these products and introducing this competitive new pricing delivers value to customers that competitors can't match."

The HP Server rp2430 replaces the A400 and the HP Server rp2470 replaces the A500. Both systems are available now for ordering.

Midrange

HP continues its five-year record of leadership in the midrange UNIX server market by earning industry accolades, inking customer wins and launching the new HP Server rp7410, which brings into the 8-way space high-end HP Superdome server features and functionality already found in the 16-way HP rp8400 midrange server.

HP has seen sequential growth in its midrange business, including a steadily growing customer base for the HP Server rp8400 since its introduction last September. This growing list of customers includes American Airlines, Cleveland Clinic Health Systems, Good Year Tire and Rubber, and Toyota, among others.

HP has improved upon the rp8400's industry-leading price/performance ratio on the TPC-C benchmark. At $14.37/tpmC, the HP Server rp8400 sets a new standard for midrange UNIX price/performance and beats IBM and Sun's results by more than 60 percent.(3)

The HP Server rp8400 also took top honors at the annual Server I/O Industry Awards, held on Feb. 6 at the conclusion of the Server I/O Conference and Tradeshow. The server was voted Product of the Year for 2001, edging out products from five other finalists in an award showcase for the best new product that became generally available in 2001 (excluding upgrades to existing products).

The HP Server rp8400 is not the only midrange HP server winning awards. In December, the HP Server rp7400 received the RISC Server Guaranteed Quality Award from the China Computer User Association.

The award was part of the China Computer Industry User Satisfactory Products Survey, the largest user survey within China's IT industry. The five-month national survey provides an in-depth look at China's use of IT products, including servers, commercial PCs, monitors, printers and switches.

The HP Server rp7400 also won the RISC Server Guaranteed Quality Award based on its reliability and overall quality -- characteristics also found in the new HP Server rp7410.

High-end

HP has achieved impressive success in the high-end UNIX server market despite today's difficult business climate. In distinct contrast to its high-end competitors, HP has experienced four consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth in the high-end UNIX server space.

HP has continued to improve the performance of HP Superdome servers, which are on track to double transaction performance by next year. For example, HP recently broke its own world record, set in December 2001, on the 3-tier SAP Standard Assemble-To-Order (ATO) Application Benchmark by 10 percent.(4) The HP Superdome server achieved 144,090 fully business processed assembly orders per hour -- more than 2.5 times IBM's highest figure, which is the closest competitive result.(5)

HP also recently introduced a 2 Gb per second fibre channel host bus adaptor (HBA) that doubles the performance of the previous HBA without raising the price. HP 's fibre channel HBA provides customers with connectivity to storage area networks (SANs), which are experiencing tremendous growth in enterprise storage networking environments.

HP can now offer end-to-end 2 Gb SAN solutions that include servers, storage, switches and consulting services. These solutions are available today for HP Superdome and other PCI-based HP UNIX servers.

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services -- is focused on making technology and its benefits accessible to all. HP had total revenue of $45.2 billion in its 2001 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com/.

(1) Actual prices may vary.

(2) SPECint_base2000 -- HP rp2470: 549 vs. Sun 280R: 470. Further information is available from http://www.spec.org/.

(3) TPC-C: 140,239.97 tpmC, $14.37/tpmC, availability date Sept. 18, 2001. See http://www.tpc.org/ for more details.

(4) HP Superdome 64 processors PA-8700 750MHz 2.25 MB L1 cache, 128 GB memory, SAP R/3 4.6C, 3-tier, 144,090 fully business processed assembly orders per hour, Oracle 9i, HP-UX 11i, certified Jan. 17, 2002. The SAP benchmarks referred in this document are fully compliant with the SAP benchmark Council's benchmark rules and are audited and certified by SAP. More information on SAP benchmarks is available at http://www.sap.com/benchmark.

(5) IBM RS/6000 S80, 24 processor RS64-III 450 MHz, 8 MB L2 cache, 32GB memory, SAP R/3 4.6B, 3-tier, 54,220 fully business processed assembly orders per hour, DB2 V7.1, AIX 4.3.3, certified Aug. 23, 2000.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that the market for the sale of certain products and services may not develop as expected; that development of these products and services may not proceed as planned; and other risks that are described from time to time in HP 's Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended Oct. 31, 2000, and subsequently filed reports. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, HP 's results could differ materially from HP 's expectations in these statements. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.