News release

HP Extends Linux Leadership with New Customers, Products and Services

Leading Linux Vendor Committed to Offering Enterprise Customers Most Choice

Demonstrating its continued investment in Linux, HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced new additions to its Linux portfolio as well as a variety of customers using the company's Linux-based products and services.

"HP's focus and investment on industry standards-based Linux products and services better serves our customers and differentiates us from the competition," said Peter Blackmore, executive vice president, HP Enterprise Systems Group. "As businesses increasingly move away from proprietary platforms for Linux, HP continues to lead the market by offering more choice to address customer needs and further distances itself from its competitors.

"In 2002, HP generated $2 billion in Linux-based revenue. HP's major investment in its Linux strategy is resulting in advanced industry-standard products, services and support and more choice for customers."

HP announced the following customers have chosen the company's Linux-based products and services:

• The California Institute of Technology selected HP servers and workstations running Linux to support its research system. The technology provides faster processing of research applications, which can now be completed in days versus weeks.
• Reservoir Technologies, a division of Core Laboratories N.V., specializing in production and reservoir management, reservoir characterization, customized seismic data processing and specialist seismic technology, chose HP servers running Linux for the processing of seismic data.
• AFP Futuro Bolivia, which handles the administration of retirement pension funds for half the working population in Bolivia, supports more than 350,000 clients on an industry-standard HP ProLiant DL580 cluster running Oracle® 9i Real Application Clusters on SuSE Linux.
• Loyalty Partner, a leading provider of customer relationship management services, selected HP's Linux-based managed services to develop and manage loyalty programs in Germany. With its "PAYBACK" program, Loyalty Partner has one of the most visited Web sites within Germany. To date, 21 million users are collecting reward points as part of Loyalty Partner's PAYBACK program.

Building on its comprehensive Linux portfolio, HP also announced the following products and services:

• HP xw Workstations: Starting February, HP plans to offer Red Hat Linux pre-installed on this new line of personal workstations.
• HP Serviceguard for Linux ProLiant Cluster: This completely integrated, high-availability clustering solution is available on a range of HP storage systems and HP ProLiant servers. It provides efficient, continuous access to applications and data, sophisticated cluster management, total solution accountability with complementary support to meet any service level requirements, and it offers disaster-tolerant stretch clustering with HP Cluster Extension.
• HP blade servers: HP became the first major server vendor to introduce a four-processor blade server, the new HP ProLiant BL40p server, which runs Linux (see press release: HP First Major Vendor to Introduce Four-processor Blade Server, issued Jan. 21).

HP's Linux initiatives announced today include:

• HP's "Linux Academy": a program to certify on Linux more than 500 HP professionals within the global HP Services organization in the major Linux distributions.
• HP Channel Program: designed to drive Linux-based solutions for Oracle, Sendmail and HPTC clusters, and to provide a baseline for clear, repeatable solutions. This program is founded in conjunction with Pioneer, which will provide matched funding for demand generation and training programs.

According to IDC's Quarterly Server Tracker, HP continues to maintain its long-standing No. 1 position in the rapidly growing Linux server market across all server platforms with 31.7 percent customer revenue market share worldwide. Industry-standard HP ProLiant servers continue to lead the market in Linux server unit shipments with more than 28.3 percent market share, marking the 18th straight quarter in which HP ProLiant servers have led the industry. In addition, HP leads the emerging Itanium®-based server market with 79 percent of customer spending.⁽¹⁾

HP customers and partners will be on hand at booth 822 at LinuxWorld in New York, where HP's Linux-based products and services will be available for demonstration. Demonstrations will include:

• Itanium 2-based servers and workstations, including a four-way server running Linux;
• HP ProLiant Storage Manager;
• Oracle 9i Real Application Clusters on an HP ProLiant system;
• SuSE Linux Open Exchange Server;
• The Linux Business Continuity Solution with HP MC/Serviceguard, a Linux clustering software for HP servers and storage;
• HPTC solutions, including Beowolf Clusters;
• HP Officejet and inkjet printers with Linux-based print drivers;
• HP's new blade server running Linux;
• Ensim Hosting Management for HP ProLiant servers; and
• Free porting and migration services from Sun's Solaris platform to Linux.

More information about HP's Linux initiatives is available at http://www.hp.com/linux or +1 888 HP Linux.

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.

⁽¹⁾ IDC Quarterly Server Tracker, CY Q3 2002. References to HP's leadership in the Linux market over the last 18 quarters include both historical Compaq as well as HP server shipments.

Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corp., Redwood City, Calif. Itanium is a registered trademark of Intel Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.