News release

HP Superdome Momentum Continues to Build with Customer Wins, Outstanding Market Growth and New Competitive Program

PALO ALTO, Calif., -- October 2, 2001

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP) today announced that the HP Superdome server continues to gain exceptional acceptance in the high-end UNIX server marketplace. New customers such as Alcatel, Liz Claiborne, Porsche, Mitsubishi Electric and GlaxoSmithKline cite the HP Superdome servers' superior performance, scalability and overall total customer experience as reasons for selecting it.

In addition, the most recent IDC report shows a year-over-year HP High-end Unix server revenue growth rate of 37 percent and 25.7 percent from Q1 to Q2. ⁽²⁾

HP also announced a competitive new program to entice IBM and Sun Microsystems customers to move to the HP Superdome server. This worldwide program matches and adds an additional 10 percent against trade-in offers for an IBM p680 or S80 and Sun UE10K ⁽¹⁾. The program is effective immediately and runs through Jan. 25, 2002.

Joe Yankauskas, manager of technical services, Liz Claiborne, Inc., said, "Scalability, high availability and performance were critical to our platform decision, and with the HP Superdome server, we have it all. As our business systems' capacity needs increase, we can easily scale by adding CPUs and PCI boards while online. And the 5nines:5minutes high-availability feature was exactly what was demanded to maximize uptime. Since implementing this platform, we have experienced a 60 percent performance increase over the legacy environment, 40 percent of which can be attributed to the HP Superdome server and HP-UX11i."

Currently, four of the top five automobile manufacturers worldwide, five of the top seven telecommunications companies worldwide and four of the top six aerospace companies worldwide are all running HP Superdome servers.

As proof of the superior value and customer experience provided by HP Superdome servers, a substantial number of existing owners continue to purchase additional HP Superdome servers. Some include General Mills, Mobilkom Austria AG, T-Systems (formerly Debis IT), Vodafone and the U.S. Navy. From November 2000 to June 2001, the number of HP Superdome server customers on the list of TOP500 Supercomputing sites⁽³⁾ grew over eightfold. This gain was at the expense of IBM, Sun and other competitors whose number of customers on the list declined (figures are available from www.top500.org). HP sees this trend continuing as the number of HP Superdome servers in high-performance technical applications increases.

"Unlike systems based on SUN UltraSPARC 3 or IBM's Power4, where a forklift upgrade or box swap is required, customers can upgrade their current HP Superdome servers without a box swap," said Mark Hudson, worldwide marketing manager, HP Business Systems and Technology Organization. "Additionally, customers can use HP Superdome servers to mix and match PA-8600 and PA-8700 processors, which is further investment protection that our competition does not even come close to matching." ⁽⁴⁾

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home -- 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 Worldwide Web at http://www.hp.com.

⁽¹⁾ HP customers (end users and resellers) who trade in an IBM S80 or p680 system against the purchase of an HP Superdome server between Sept. 25, 2001 and Jan. 31, 2002, and meet the program requirements, are eligible to receive double the standard rebate for the IBM S80 or p680 system. HP customers who trade in a Sun UE10K system against the purchase of an HP Superdome server between Sept. 25, 2001 and Jan. 31, 2002, and meet the program requirements, are eligible to receive an additional 30 percent rebate over and above the prevailing rebate for the Sun UE10K system. In the event of IBM or Sun Microsystems providing a more competitive, documented, counteroffer to the eligible customer for the IBM S80 or p680 or Sun UE10K systems, HP will meet the offer and raise it by 10 percent. This is subject to program conditions and approval by HP.

⁽²⁾ According to IDC's Quarterly Server Tracker, Q2CY2001 for HP UNIX high-end revenues, published September 2001.

⁽³⁾ The TOP500 list of the world's top 500 supercomputer sites is released every six months. The list is prepared by the University of Mannheim and the University of Tennessee and is designed to provide a basis for comparing statistics on high-performance computers. The best Linpack benchmark performance achieved is used as a performance measure in ranking the computers. The TOP500 list has been updated twice a year since June 1993. Details of all published lists are available on www.top500.org.

⁽⁴⁾Mix and match requires the HP Superdome servers to be configured with multiple partitions. PA-8700 processors must be in a separate partition from PA-8600 processors.