News release

Compaq SAN Powers FreeMarkets B2B Global Marketplace

Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) has been selected by FreeMarkets Inc. to power its B2B Global Marketplace.

FreeMarkets has created over 11,500 online markets for more than $16.6 billion worth of goods and services and created estimated savings of over $3.2 billion for its customers. More than 11,100 suppliers from over 64 countries participate in the FreeMarkets B2B Global Marketplace.

"Compaq's SAN solution ensures the reliability needed in today's competitive marketplace," said John Benzinger, FreeMarkets' vice president of information technology. "In addition, the Compaq SAN offers the scalability to match our growth rate and it works with existing file servers and operating systems. Overall, the Compaq partnership enables us to build a product that is able to scale with our business and deliver the reliability that we need to assure the 100 percent reliability and availability that are the hallmarks of our commitment to our customers."

Compaq supplies a complete solution integrating servers, storage, software and services. Compaq connected FreeMarkets' heterogeneous technology environment and added an additional 3.01 terabytes of storage. This extended the company's total capacity, allocated over multiple systems creating a pool of more than 11 terabytes. FreeMarkets' storage area network is connected to multiple servers and operating systems including Compaq ProLiant™ servers running the Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter server operating system.

Compaq is the world's number one SAN supplier, according to recent Dataquest research conducted on year 2000 sales. With more than 24,000 SAN-attached RAID arrays shipped last year, Compaq sold more SANs than its six nearest competitors combined, accounting for a 48.5 percent market share.

About Compaq Enterprise Storage Group

Compaq Enterprise Storage, the number one open storage solutions supplier, is the industry leader in the development and delivery of the Open SAN. Recognized for its vision and ability to execute, Compaq Enterprise Storage Group is committed to simplifying the Open SAN through its Enterprise Network Storage Architecture (ENSA), which enables customers to efficiently manage complex, mixed storage environments. More information on Compaq StorageWorks and SANworks solutions is available at http://www.compaq.com/products/storageworks/SAN/index.html.

About Compaq

Compaq Computer Corporation, a Fortune Global 100 company, is a leading global provider of technology and solutions. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures, and markets hardware, software, solutions, and services, including industry-leading enterprise computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, and communications products, commercial desktop and portable products, and consumer PCs that are sold in more than 200 countries. Information on Compaq and its products and services is available at http://www.compaq.com.