News release

HP Further Drives Adoption of Itanium-based Solutions for Enterprise Customers

Announces New Customers, Performance Records, Chipset, Commercial Solutions and Opening of Third HP and Intel Solution Center

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today made a series of announcements that underscores the adoption of Itanium® 2-based platforms in the enterprise. The announcements include new customers, additional software applications from HP partners, a third HP and Intel Solution Center in Shanghai, China, new commercial performance records and a new chipset.

"With the value and adoption of Itanium-based solutions well established in technical markets, today's announcements drive Itanium solutions further into the enterprise," said Mark Hudson, vice president of marketing, HP Business Critical Systems. "HP's collaboration with partners is driving commercial applications availability for Itanium-based systems, and recent wins demonstrate the strength of HP's Itanium-based solutions for commercial customers." New customers around the globe that are adopting Itanium 2-based HP systems include: UK-based furniture manufacturer and retailer, Mulityork; Iceland's largest healthcare facility, Landspitali University Hospital; Queens University Belfast; Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in Korea; and California Institute of Technology.

"HP, SAP and Itanium processing power is a winning combination -- the latest ERP technology at the best price/performance ratio currently available," said Peter Mallinson, chief executive, Multiyork. "This is exactly what we required to integrate and improve our business practices. It is essential for all components of our business to be in tune with one another. This is a tailor-made solution for a tailor-made business."

In addition to hundreds of technical applications currently available for Itanium 2-based HP servers, a growing portfolio of commercial enterprise applications from leading companies -- including BEA, Oracle, and SAP -- recently have been announced.

Most recently, BEA last week announced the availability of its WebLogic Server version 7.0, allowing customers and partners to easily migrate applications to Itanium-based HP systems, realize a significant and sustainable computing performance edge, and integrate legacy and Web-based applications faster than ever before.

"HP holds a commanding lead in the Itanium-based server market today and is well positioned to retain that leadership in this market segment which is growing at 193 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)," said Vernon Turner, group vice president, IDC.

Newly opened in Shanghai, the third HP and Intel Solution Center allows customers to conduct proof-of-concept testing to accelerate the deployment of Itanium 2-based solutions on three operating systems: HP-UX, Microsoft® Windows® and Linux. Jointly staffed, the center provides customers the combined expertise of HP and Intel Itanium processor family specialists. The companies already have similar Itanium architecture focused centers in Cupertino, Calif., and Grenoble, France. In addition, HP operates more than 80 customer centers worldwide.

Leading Commercial Performance

Building on other recent record benchmark figures, HP announced a set of industry-leading four-processor benchmark results with the Itanium 2-based HP Server rx5670:

The HP rx5670 posted a TPC-C benchmark result using 64-bit pre-release versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition and Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Enterprise Edition (64 bit) of 87,741 at $5.03/transactions per minute (tpmC). This new benchmark complements HP's record-setting benchmarks with HP-UX, Linux and Oracle database on the server, demonstrating leading four-processor TPC-C performance across UNIX®, Windows and Linux. A complete list of all benchmarks is available at http://www.tpc.org/.

• The HP rx5670 running HP-UX 11i and Oracle® Database and using HP StorageWorks va7100 disk arrays posted a result of 3,090 fully processed assembly orders per hour⁽¹⁾ on the two-tier SAP® Standard Application Assemble to Order (ATO) Benchmark.
• The HP rx5670 running HP-UX 11i and Oracle Database and using HP StorageWorks va7400 disk arrays recorded a user count of 4,200⁽²⁾ on the Oracle Application Standard Benchmark, which simulates realistic enterprise resource planning customer scenarios to demonstrate the performance and scalability of Oracle Applications.

Additionally, In-Stat/MDR's technology analysts selected Intel's Itanium 2 as the Best Server Processor of 2002 last week when Microprocessor Report announced the winners of the fourth annual Analysts' Choice Awards.

In a separate announcement this morning at the Intel Developers Forum, HP unveiled its new super-scalable processor chipset sx1000 and the HP mx2 dual processor module. The chipset and module enable HP to offer customers greater system performance by dramatically increasing the total number of processors that can be deployed in a server (see press release "HP Introduces Dual Itanium 2-based Processor Module and Super-scalable Chipset," Feb. 18, 2003).

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

⁽¹⁾ Running the two-tier SAP Standard Application Assemble-To-Order (ATO) Benchmark, HP achieved the four-processor result of 3,090 fully processed assembly orders per hour. This was achieved on an HP Server rx5670 running HP-UX 11i version 1.6, SAP R/3® Release 4.6C and Oracle9i Database Release 2. The configuration used four of the 1-GHz Itanium 2 processors with 3 MB of L3 cache and 24 GB of main memory. This SAP benchmark was certified by SAP and fully complies with the guidelines issued by the SAP Benchmark Council. Result referenced is current as of Feb. 10, 2003. More information on SAP Standard Application Benchmarks is available at http://www.sap.com/benchmark.

⁽²⁾ As of Jan. 13, 2003: HP Server rx5670, four processors, Intel Itanium 2 at 1 GHz, Oracle Applications Standard Benchmark version 11.5.6, 4,200 users, 1.51s average response time.

Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group. Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corp., Redwood City, Calif.