News release

Compaq Beats EMC, IBM, Dell & Network Appliance With Broadest Range of NAS Offerings

Company Also Announces Fastest NAS Benchmark and Open Connectivity

Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) launched two new StorageWorks Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems today, rounding out a powerful suite of NAS products and positioning Compaq as the first-to-market with the broadest offering for network storage.

"No other vendor can match our suite of products in terms of breadth of offering, performance, scalability, ease-of-use, SAN/NAS fusion and standards support," said John Young, vice president and general manager of the Network Attached Storage Division, Compaq Enterprise Storage Group. "Whether you're in a small business or large enterprise, in need of a stand-alone NAS system or one that can connect into a Storage Area Network (SAN), Compaq's suite has a solution to meet any business need."

Compaq's new products include the StorageWorks NAS S1000 for enterprise remote offices or small businesses, and the StorageWorks NAS B3000 for enterprises that want to fuse their NAS and SAN systems. Compaq was an early leader in envisioning the convergence of NAS and SAN technologies, and the need for these to be built using open systems platforms to ensure hardware compatibility, high performance, low maintenance costs, and investment protection. [See notes to editor: NAS Market Landscape]

Implementing network storage in a SAN or NAS environment has been proven to reduce ownership costs by as much as 45 percent, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch and McKinsey & Company⁽¹⁾. Compaq was the first to recognize that even more significant benefits can be achieved by "fusing" the NAS and SAN environments into a single, consolidated storage pool—Compaq calls this "Universal Network Storage."

"In the past there has been a lot of confusion about NAS or SAN as either or proposition," said Jamie Gruener, senior analyst at The Yankee Group. "In fact there are still folks advocating storage silos—when at the end of the day, this is all about networked storage. Since customers come in all shapes and sizes, they will get real value from a vendor that provides a range of options in size and price and the ability to fuse NAS and SAN together."

StorageWorks NAS B3000

Providing an entry-point into NAS/SAN fusion solutions the B3000 delivers enterprise-level availability, scalability and performance in a consolidated package. The B3000 incorporates the StorageWorks MSA1000 entry-level SAN for storage, offering the benefits of NAS/SAN fusion and Universal Network Storage to business class systems.

Kyle Larson, manager for Information Technology, Texas Children's Cancer Center commented, "We've wanted to implement a storage consolidation strategy for some time now, but planning and deployment seemed excessively complex and expensive. The StorageWorks NAS B3000 allowed us to consolidate our file and block level data in one turnkey solution. We quickly consolidated our storage and realized significant savings by leveraging the existing disks. Now we have the benefit of NAS and SAN working together."

StorageWorks NAS S1000

The Compaq StorageWorks NAS S1000 (S1000) is a quick and simple NAS solution providing multi-protocol file and storage management for workgroups, small business and remote locations. By offering turnkey network storage which is easy to deploy and easy to manage, the S1000 provides "plug and forget" file serving at a price approaching that of tape. With 320 and 640 gigabyte models available, Compaq delivers to NAS customers a complete package built for convenience with low cost of entry, low management and limited training requirements.

For more information about StorageWorks NAS B3000 and S1000 by Compaq, please see http://www.compaq.com/products/storageworks/announcements/04-08-2002.html.

Open Systems, Without Sacrificing Performance

In addition to these products, Compaq also announced new technologies that it will incorporate into its NAS product line this year. These technologies provide Compaq customers with power and speed exceeding proprietary NAS architectures, yet with the ability to seamlessly integrate into Compaq and non-Compaq storage environments.

In order to demonstrate the power of standards, Compaq announced technology for "the world's fastest NAS," an open standards-based Compaq NAS system that provides up to twice the speed of competitive NAS products when running standard, independently audited, benchmark tests.⁽²⁾

In addition, Compaq has announced its intention to provide Compaq NAS connectivity into third-party SANs, providing customers with the ability to maximize and protect their investment in legacy or heterogeneous storage environments.

Young added: "Compaq's new range of NAS solutions provide the ultimate in performance with the cost of ownership benefits of open standards technologies. That synergy represents the best way to ensure that customers get enterprise-class NAS solutions in a cost-effective and high-ROI framework."

Notes to editor:

NAS Market Landscape

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 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.