News release

Compaq Leads Western Europe Storage Market in Revenue, Units and Capacity Shipped

StorageWorks Value Entices Buyers Worldwide to Choose Compaq

Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) is projected to finish 2001 as the number one disk storage⁽¹⁾ vendor in Western Europe, including a move into first place in external storage revenue, according to the latest analysis of the worldwide storage market by the industry analyst firm IDC. The analysis assesses the performance of the leading storage vendors in terms of revenue, terabytes sold and units shipped.

"Compaq's modular StorageWorks design offers better price and performance compared to a monolithic architecture as it has been developed from the ground up for open systems environments," said Olaf Swantee, vice president EMEA [Europe, Middle East & Africa], Compaq Enterprise Storage. "Our leading market position provides two proof points: the growing acceptance of our StorageWorks architecture and the assurance to customers that their investments in mission-critical storage mean low risk as they work with a vendor that installs nearly half of all disk storage in Western Europe."

These achievements prove that consumers want IT solutions that present the best long-term return on their IT investments. Compaq is winning the confidence of customers worldwide, surpassing all competitors in terms of revenue, terabytes sold and units shipped.

Disk Storage Systems Market Forecast, 2001⁽²⁾

• Server-Based Internal & External Disk Storage
  #1 in revenue and market share
  #1 in TB⁽³⁾ shipped
  #1 in units shipped
  
  
• Open Systems Disk Storage
  #1 in revenue and market share
  #1 in TB shipped
  #1 in units shipped
  
  
• External Storage
  #1 in TB shipped
  #1 in units shipped

"Compaq is estimated to be the leader of the 2001 disk storage systems market, based upon IDC's recently released preliminary assessment of the 2001 disk storage systems market," stated Claus Egge, program director at IDC. "This report forecasts that Compaq will ship more than 320,000 disk storage systems in Western Europe in 2001 or 47% of all disk storage system units. Further, IDC forecasts that Compaq will supply 29% of the total storage system capacity purchased by Western European businesses in 2001. With revenue estimated at $1.59 billion in 2001, IDC also predicts that Compaq will be the number one vendor in European disk storage systems revenue."

Since launching its Enterprise Network Storage Architecture (ENSA) in 1998, Compaq has been the champion of modular, scalable storage solutions that allow users to expand their systems as their needs grow. In August 2001, Compaq extended this acclaimed vision by unveiling ENSA 2, its model for leading the industry with affordable, reliable modular storage systems.

About Compaq Enterprise Storage

Compaq, the number one global storage solutions supplier, is the leader in the development and delivery of the enterprise SAN. Recognized for its vision and ability to execute, Compaq is committed to driving radical simplification and investment protection for enterprise and SMB customers. By continuing to extend its Enterprise Network Storage Architecture (ENSA) in key areas such as virtualization, automation, universal network storage and life cycle data management, Compaq enables customers to efficiently manage complex, mixed storage environment. Information on Compaq's StorageWorks and SANworks solutions is available at www.compaq.com/storage.

About Compaq

Founded in 1982, Compaq Computer Corporation is a leading global provider of enterprise technology and solutions. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures and markets hardware, software, solutions and services, including industry-leading enterprise storage and computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, communication products, and desktop and portable personal computers that are sold in more than 200 countries. Information on Compaq and its products and services is available at http://www.compaq.com.