News release

HP and Wachovia Partner on Branch Technology Upgrade with ProLiant Servers

PALO ALTO, Calif., and CHARLOTTE, N.C., Aug. 20, 2002

HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB), the nation's fourth largest bank holding company, are partnering on a technology upgrade effort for Wachovia branches in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia.

The agreement calls for the delivery of approximately 1,800 industry-standard HP ProLiant ML350 servers to be installed in Wachovia branches over the next 12 to 18 months.

"The HP ProLiant servers being deployed in this project will be an important part of our retail branch technology platform -- a platform that will increase our operational efficiency as well as help ensure uniform customer service across all branches and all product lines," said Chuck Hobbs, manager of distributed systems, Wachovia. "This new technology will further enable Wachovia to deliver an enhanced customer experience throughout our service area."

The HP ProLiant servers will support retail branch operations, including the capture and preparation of teller transactions for transmission to the company's central record-keeping system.

Each ProLiant server comes complete with the ProLiant Essentials Foundation Pack, which includes HP SmartStart, HP Insight Manager version 7 and additional utilities and tools. In addition, each server will include HP Remote Insight Lights-out Edition to simplify server deployment and management, which will allow the bank's IT staff to manage and monitor the branch servers from a central command center.

"The operational and customer service demands of a major financial services holding company such as Wachovia require an adaptive infrastructure based on proven technology," said Drew Caola, vice president of sales, HP Americas Financial Services. "The manageability, solid engineering and proven reliability of the HP ProLiant servers make it the right choice for this effort."

The selection of HP ProLiant servers for the branch integration project came about in part as a result of Wachovia's experience in using earlier ProLiant server models supporting other applications within the bank.

Installation of the new equipment is underway and is expected to be completed during mid-2003.

About Wachovia

Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB), created through the Sept. 1, 2001, merger of First Union and Wachovia, had assets of $325 billion and stockholders' equity of $30 billion at June 30, 2002. Wachovia is a leading provider of financial services to 20 million retail, brokerage and corporate customers throughout the East Coast and the nation. The company operates full-service banking offices under the First Union and Wachovia names in 11 East Coast states and Washington, D.C., and offers full-service brokerage with offices in 49 states and global services through more than 30 international offices. Online banking and brokerage products and services are available through http://www.wachovia.com and http://www.firstunion.com.

About HP

HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. HP completed its merger transaction involving Compaq Computer Corp. on May 3, 2002. The company would have had combined revenue on a pro forma basis with the Compaq transaction of approximately $81.1 billion in fiscal 2001 and has operations in more than 160 countries. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

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 employee management issues; 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, HP's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended January 31, 2002 and reports filed subsequent to HP's annual report on Form 10-K, as amended on January 30, 2002, for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2001. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.