News release

HP Announces Mid-range UNIX Server with Unmatched Capabilities

HP Server rp8400 Raises Bar for Scalability, Flexibility, Customer Value

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 18, 2001

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP) today announced a mid-range UNIX server ideally suited for the demanding workloads and return-on-investment priorities of enterprises, service providers, and high-performance technical computing. The introduction of the HP Server rp8400 expands the mid-range landscape into an area unoccupied by competitors' systems.

< Building on HP's four-year sustained leadership in the mid-range UNIX server market ⁽¹⁾, the HP Server rp8400 delivers industry-leading performance and price/performance(2). Featuring unmatched scalability, availability and flexibility, the server offers customers the opportunity for significant operational cost savings. It provides lasting value and unparalleled investment protection for key applications such as server consolidation, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, computer-aided engineering, customer relationship management, e-commerce, and billing.

"We're looking to the HP Server rp8400 to provide in a single box the high performance and capability required for our Arbor/BP billing software," said Mark Friedman, vice president, Products Programs, Billing and Customer Care, Lucent Technologies. "This unit provides many benefits to our customers including efficiency for space and power needs as well as overall ease of operation."

Running HP-UX 11i, the industry's richest enterprise operating system, the HP Server rp8400 is a cornerstone to enable a customer's always-on Internet infrastructure. Using up to 16 PA-RISC 8700 processors -- today's fastest commercial RISC processor -- the HP Server rp8400 extends HP's mid-range UNIX server offerings, which include the up-to-8-processor HP Server rp7400, formerly known as the N-class server. Customers can now purchase the HP Server rp7400 with the PA-8700 processor.

"With the HP Server rp8400, HP is redefining the industry's mid-range UNIX landscape," said Duane Zitzner, president, HP Computing Systems. "Companies redefined the 24-hour delivery service by improving processes and refining operational excellence and brought expensive counter-to-counter airline delivery down to consumer-friendly prices. Likewise, the HP Server rp8400 provides high-end server capabilities to customers at mid-range prices."

Scalability for Data Centers

The HP Server rp8400 is ideally suited for the demanding workload and availability needs critical in today's data center. It delivers the best performance of any mid-range server on the TPC-C benchmark with 140,239 tpmC⁽²⁾, surpassing IBM's new p660 Model 6M1 mid-range server by a commanding 33 percent. At $16.31/tpmC, the HP Server rp8400 also sets a new standard for mid-range UNIX price/performance.

The HP Server rp8400's Internet performance leadership is illustrated with a world-record SPECweb99® benchmark of 15,000 simultaneous connections, better than any server in the market⁽³⁾.

The system, with HP-UX 11i and its linear scalability, demonstrates additional mid-range performance leadership in its handling of Java™ applications. With a SPECjbb2000™ performance result of 118,547 operations per second, the HP Server rp8400 outperforms a Sun Fire 6800 by nearly 10 percent while using one-third fewer processors⁽⁴⁾.

For technical applications, the HP Server rp8400 demonstrates best-in-class (mid-range rack system) SPEC CFP2000 and CINT2000 rates of 71 and 98.2, respectively (peak rates for 16 processors)⁽⁵⁾.

It is also the only mid-range server to receive the Uptime Institute tier IV certification without deviation for fault-tolerant power compliance⁽⁶⁾. This demonstrates the server's unparalleled set of high-availability capabilities.

Flexibility to Manage Commitments and Costs

With the industry's most complete spectrum of provisioning offerings, the HP Server rp8400 with HP-UX 11i operating system provides IT managers with the tools to optimize use of computing resources and deliver on service-level objectives. This offering includes the only hardware, virtual, and goal-based resource partitioning capabilities available from a mid-range server fully integrated to match the objectives of a customer's business.

These capabilities combine with HP's partitioning support services to deliver enhanced functionality and a seamless operating environment and provide an efficient, easy-to-use manageability platform for even the most complex IT infrastructures.

With up to four times better performance density than its major competitors, low power consumption and HP's renowned services and support, the HP Server rp8400 can enable customers to achieve operational cost savings up to 80 percent better than those achieved by its nearest rivals⁽⁷⁾.

Lasting Value for Businesses

The HP Server rp8400 supports customer needs for investment protection through innovative utility pricing models and financing options, including the industry's only pay-per-use program as well as a pay-per-forecast offering and instant capacity on demand, available in selected countries.

HP offers financing arrangements to extend the cost of buying new equipment. These include a 12-month zero percent annual percentage rate plan and a "Two-thirds Now, One-third Later" plan based on the customer's capacity planning requirements. The latter plan allows customers to defer or step payments with access to an additional one-third of capacity at no additional cost (available in selected countries).

To keep customers' investments protected and paying back for years to come, the HP Server rp8400 features easy, in-box central processing unit (CPU) board upgrades to future generations of PA-RISC and Intel® Itanium™ Processor Family processors.

Customers also can rely on HP's expertise in comprehensive service and support. Support offerings are available to meet customer requirements for all phases of the IT infrastructure lifecycle -- from purchase and installation to trouble-shooting and upgrades.

Availability and Pricing

The HP Server rp8400 is currently available, in volume, worldwide with an estimated U.S. list price beginning at $124,000⁽⁸⁾.

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.

⁽¹⁾ International Data Corporation calendar year (1997-2000) market share data.

⁽²⁾ TPC-C: 140,239.97 tpmC, $16.31/tpmC, availability date Sept. 18. See http://www.tpc.org for more details.

⁽³⁾ SPECweb99: Competitive benchmark scores reflect results published on http://www.spec.org as of Sept. 18. The comparison is based on all available results as of this date. For the latest SPECweb99 benchmark results, see http://www.spec.org/osg/web99.

⁽⁴⁾ SPECjbb2000: Competitive benchmark scores reflect results published on http://www.spec.org as of Sept. 18. The comparison is based on the best available results for Sun Fire 6800 servers as of this date. For the latest SPECjbb2000 benchmark results, see http://www.spec.org/osg/jbb2000/.

⁽⁵⁾ SPECcpu2000: Competitive benchmark scores reflect results published on http://www.spec.org as of Sept. 18. The comparison is based on the best available 16-CPU CINT2000 and CFP2000 rate results published for all mid-range rack systems as of this date. For the latest SPEC® CPU2000 benchmark results, see http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/.

⁽⁶⁾ Tier IV characteristics include multiple active power and cooling distribution paths, redundant components, fault tolerant, 99.995 percent availability. See http://www.upsite.com for more details.

⁽⁷⁾ Based on xSP hosting costs and vendor support pricing estimates.

⁽⁸⁾ Actual price may vary.

HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.00 and later (in both 32- and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers are Open Group UNIX 95 branded products. UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group. Java is a U.S. trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corp. SPEC and the benchmark names SPECweb, SPECint and SPECfp are registered trademarks and SPECjbb is a trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

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.