News release

Compaq Achieves #1 in High Performance Revenue for Second Consecutive Year Says IDC Report

Market Share of 22.8 Percent Leads All Vendors

For the second consecutive year, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) has achieved industry-leading performance as the #1 vendor in high performance server revenue with a 22.8 percent overall market share and $1.15 billion in sales revenue, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Technical Systems and Servers 2001 Year in Review Report released in February 2002.

Compaq led all vendors in the "Departmental" segment of the IDC Report with 28 percent of the revenue, and Compaq's AlphaServer SC series running Tru64 UNIX has become the system of choice for many of the world's most demanding high performance customers, enabling Compaq to double its market share growth in the "Capability" segment.

The report provides continued proof of Compaq's focused strategy for high performance technical computing, and Compaq's leadership in this arena reflects a continuing wave of major supercomputer contract wins in genomics, bioinformatics, life sciences, research, computer simulation and animation during the past 12 months.

"Compaq's effort to maintain its strong position in the technical server market has been validated for the second consecutive year with it achieving industry-leading performance as the #1 vendor in high performance server revenue as reported in our 2001 technical systems and servers year in review report," said Debra Goldfarb, group vice president, Worldwide Enterprise Systems for IDC. "We have every expectation that Compaq will continue to be intensely focused on this segment through strong partnerships, innovation in important emerging technologies, such as grids and clusters, and by staying close to its customers."

For more details, visit Compaq's Web site at http://www.compaq.com/hpc.

Continued Proof of Leadership

This continued #1 ranking reflects the power and performance of Compaq's high performance supercomputing systems based on such recent wins as:

• A Compaq supercomputer capable of performing 6 trillion operations per second (6 TeraOPS)—called the Terascale Computing System—is now up and running at the Pittsburgh (PA) Supercomputing Center (PSC). It is the world's largest unclassified supercomputer designed for open research.
• In another project at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Compaq is collaborating with PSC on a project called CASP5, which is intended to provide large-scale computational resources to accurately predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins.
• The State of New York selected Compaq supercomputing systems to power the Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics in Buffalo (NY) to enable new drug discoveries, innovative medical treatments, and specialized computer products.
• Compaq has built the most powerful supercomputer in Europe for the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) to perform the digital simulation and testing of nuclear weapons. The system is capable of executing five trillion operations per second (5 TeraOPS), and, as a comparison, this supercomputer can do the work of 30,000 mathematicians working day and night for five years on handheld calculators.
• Genoscope, the French National Sequencing Center, in February 2002 added eight more Compaq AlphaServer systems to multiply its computing power by a factor of five to significantly expand its work on sequencing the human genome.

Other Compaq supercomputer projects proceeding on target are:

• The ASCI "Q" system at Los Alamos National Laboratory, designed for the modeling and simulation of nuclear testing. When completed in 2002, it is expected to be the world's fastest and most powerful supercomputer capable of more than 30 trillion operations per second (30 TeraOPS).
• The Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) supercomputer designed for research in chemistry, physics, engineering, environmental sciences, astronomy and finance. When completed in 2002, it will be the largest supercomputer in Australia.
• Major Compaq-based supercomputer projects continue at Celera Genomics, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, GeneProt, The Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research, Sandia National Laboratory Cplant project, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, and Blue Sky Studios, to name just a few.

Company Background

Founded in 1982, Compaq Computer Corporation is a leading global provider of information technology products, services and solutions for enterprise customers. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures and markets information technology equipment, software, services and solutions, including industry-leading enterprise storage and computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, communication products, personal desktop and notebook computers, and personal entertainment and Internet access devices that are sold in more than 200 countries directly and through a network of authorized Compaq marketing partners. Information on Compaq and its products and services is available at http://www.compaq.com.