News release

HP Unveils Industry's First Multi-processor Blade Server Architecture for the Enterprise

Enables Customers to Achieve Adaptive Infrastructures

PALO ALTO, Calif., Aug. 26, 2002

HP (NYSE: HPQ) today announced the industry's first multi-processor blade server architecture -- the HP ProLiant BL p-Class system, which provides customers with high performance and high availability for enterprise applications.

First to market with the concept of blade servers in 2001, HP now delivers the next wave of the HP ProLiant BL line of industry-standard server blades and further expands the industry's most comprehensive and strongest portfolio of blade products and management software for enterprise data centers and service providers.

Optimized to address customers' needs for performance and availability, the HP ProLiant BL p-Class server architecture protects server information using intelligent fault-resilient power, hot-plug SCSI drives, redundant network interface cards (NICs) and an integrated RAID controller. Its innovative design allows customers to dynamically scale workloads by adding server blades, interconnects and power. In addition, customers can realize an 80 percent reduction in cabling with the p-Class server architecture versus traditional servers.

"Today, businesses require computing infrastructures that deliver a competitive advantage through greater cost efficiencies and the ability to conserve resources and respond more quickly to changing business needs. Customers also demand a sophisticated blade architecture with the performance and investment protection to scale across the enterprise," said Mary McDowell, senior vice president and general manager, HP Industry Standard Servers. "While most of our competitors are just now beginning to introduce blade offerings, HP has already begun the second phase of delivering comprehensive blade systems, from ProLiant BL e-Class low-voltage blades for front-end applications to more advanced ProLiant BL p-Class dual- and, eventually, four-processor performance blades for mid-tier and back-end applications."

Building Adaptive Infrastructure Solutions

Infrastructure solutions based on the HP ProLiant BL p-Class server architecture reduce IT complexity and improve efficiency for enterprise customers by combining powerful management capabilities and high-performance servers into flexible, highly available infrastructures. Features include:

• Highly available performance server blades -- the HP ProLiant BL20p initial blade features up to two Intel® Pentium® III processors, two hot-plug SCSI drives, 4 gigabyte ECC SDRAM max memory and an integrated RAID controller with battery-backed write cache. The ProLiant BL20p is the first server blade to offer up to 144 GB of internal storage. HP Integrated Lights-out (iLO) technology provides intelligent infrastructure and blade management. iLO technology also enables virtual presence and control by uniquely allowing customers to remotely manage blades, even if the operating system is not functioning. This server blade is ideal for multi-server applications such as dynamic Web hosting, terminal server farm and media streaming.

• Enterprise-class infrastructure -- HP ProLiant BL p-Class server blades "blind mate" into a server blade enclosure allowing customers to literally snap in new blades on demand. The system's power infrastructure provides redundant hot-plug power to all of the server blade enclosures. The ProLiant BL p-Class infrastructure also supports HP's forthcoming generation of dual- and quad-processor blades to maximize customers' investments.

• Enterprise management and deployment -- HP Insight Manager 7 and the ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Pack software provide an enterprise infrastructure that allows automated configuration and provisioning of operating systems and applications on tens or hundreds of servers simultaneously. These technologies are optimized to integrate with the HP OpenView software suite and also within customers' existing infrastructures. Industry-leading HP OpenView infrastructure management software enables companies to manage and optimize business services over IT, voice and data infrastructures.

Alliance Program and Services

HP has extended the HP Blade Server Alliance Program to the ProLiant BL p-Class to further customer choice and confidence. Through the program, HP works with leading independent software and hardware vendors to develop and test new solutions for the ProLiant BL line of server blades. More information on this program is available at http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/blades/products/index.html.

HP Services will offer a complete portfolio of life-cycle solutions for HP ProLiant BL p-Class systems to ensure protection against hardware downtime 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. With these offerings, HP Services will provide quick response and resolution to problems for hardware, software, networking and operating systems, and installation and startup services. For customers purchasing ProLiant BL p-Class solutions, HP Services also will offer a variety of services -- from "off-the-shelf" CarePaq Packaged Service Offerings to custom-service offers built specifically to enhance IT solutions.

Pricing and Availability

The HP ProLiant BL p-Class is available to order today. Pricing for a single BL20p server blade with 1.4-GHz processor and 512 MB memory starts at an estimated U.S. Internet list price of $2,539. Pricing for the ProLiant BL p-Class enclosure with 8 Rapid Deployment Pack licenses starts at an estimated U.S. Internet list price of $2,999.⁽¹⁾ More information on the products announced today is available at http://www.compaq.com/products/servers/proliant-bl/p-class/index.html.

Additional information about HP's entire blade server family is available at http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/eng/prodserv/servers.html.

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 revenue on a combined company basis with Compaq 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.

⁽¹⁾ Actual prices may vary.

Intel and Pentium are U.S. registered trademarks of Intel Corp.

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, 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. 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.