News release

HP, Hitachi Announce Plans to Extend High-end Storage Technology Agreements

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 16, 2001

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP) and Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) today announced their intent to extend their joint technology agreement and original equipment manufacturer agreement relationship for another three years. The original agreement, signed in May 1999, allowed HP to combine Hitachi's core array technology with HP's open system software and solutions to create the HP Surestore XP storage array family, which exceeded sales of $1 billion earlier this year.

"HP is proud to celebrate with Hitachi two years of enterprise storage success by extending our relationship further," said Nora Denzel, vice president and general manager, HP Network Storage Solutions Organization. "HP's XP solutions not only meet our customer's needs today, but help provide investment protection as the newest technologies and products resulting from the HP and Hitachi alliance are integrated in future HP XP disk arrays."

The HP XP disk array family uses Hitachi's high-end disk array technology combined with firmware exclusive to HP and HP developed software to deliver Web-based XP array management.

HP also has integrated the XP arrays with HP OpenView data center and storage management software. This allows information technology (IT) professionals to deliver availability and performance service level agreements to their users. In addition, HP provides pre-tested storage solutions such as disaster recovery, remote clustering, and zero-downtime backup with the XP arrays that allow IT administrators to quickly deploy storage solutions in heterogeneous server environments.

"Hitachi's relationship with HP has been successful from both financial and technological standpoints," said Takao Kato, senior corporate officer, president and chief executive officer, Information and Telecommunication Platform Systems, Hitachi, Ltd. "We are committed to extending our relationship with HP to continue meeting the needs of enterprise storage customers around the world."

Additional information on the HP Surestore XP disk array family can be found at http://www.hp.com/storage.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 2000 (ended March 31, 2001) consolidated sales of 8,417 billion yen ($67.9 billion*). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.

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 from continuing operations of $48.8 billion in its 2000 fiscal year. Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

*At an exchange rate of 124 yen to the dollar.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause the results of HP and its consolidated subsidiaries to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any projections of earnings, revenues, or other financial items; any statements of the plans, strategies, and objectives of management for future operations; any statements concerning proposed new products, services, or developments; any statements regarding future economic conditions or performance; statements of belief and any statement of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. The risks, uncertainties and assumptions referred to above include the ability of HP to retain and motivate key employees; the timely development, production and acceptance of products and services and their feature sets; the challenge of managing asset levels, including inventory; the flow of products into third-party distribution channels; the difficulty of keeping expense growth at modest levels while increasing revenues; 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. HP does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.