News release

HP Holds No. 1 Position in Worldwide Disk Storage Systems, Leads for First Time in SANs Revenue and External RAID Storage

Industry Report Reveals HP Posts Gains in Every Disk Storage System Sub-market

HP (NYSE:HPQ) continued its leadership as the industry's No. 1 vendor of disk storage systems, according to IDC's Worldwide Disk Storage Systems Quarterly Tracker, December 2002, issued today.

IDC, a leading market research firm, reported that HP held the No. 1 position in total worldwide disk storage systems factory revenue in the third quarter of 2002 with 27 percent market share, seven points higher than No. 2 IBM and 16 points higher than EMC -- a three-point increase from the previous quarter.

In addition, HP took the No. 1 spot for the first time in open storage area networks (SANs) with 30 percent market share, three points higher than No. 2 EMC. HP also held the top spot for SAN units shipped with 38 percent market share, a 7 percent gain over the second quarter.

HP also took the lead for the first time in external RAID storage, with 19.6 percent share, ahead of EMC at 18.1 percent. Moreover, HP posted positive gains quarter over quarter in every major category of the report, despite overall market declines.

"This latest report from IDC proves once again that customers continue to see HP as the company offering the most complete range of network storage solutions across a broad range of industries," said Howard Elias, senior vice president and general manager, HP Network Storage Solutions. "Customers want to reduce costs and complexity while increasing ROI with today's sophisticated heterogeneous environments. We continue to have a relentless focus on providing our customers with the most efficient and effective solutions in building adaptive storage infrastructures."

Over the last several months, HP has introduced numerous new and enhanced storage products across every area of its business. Highlights included the addition of major customers such as Air Force Education Training and Command, Maritz, Inc., Affina, SM&P Utility Resources, Computershare, HealthNet, Independence Blue Cross and Siemens Power Generation Group.

HP also unveiled its ENSAextended strategy for enabling the adaptive storage infrastructure and began shipping HP OpenView Storage Area Manager 3.0 software. In addition, HP was first to market with Generation 2 Ultrium tape drives.

More information on HP's network storage solutions is available at http://www.hp.com/go/storage.

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 Corporation on May 3, 2002. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.