News release

Greater Baltimore Medical Center Selects HP ProLiant Blade Servers

"Servers of Choice" Improve Performance and Consolidate Data Center Space

HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced that the Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) has implemented HP ProLiant BL20p blade servers running Microsoft Windows® 2000 to power mission-critical applications. By eliminating three full racks of servers and replacing them with a single rack of HP ProLiant blade servers, GBMC plans to reduce operating costs, save valuable data center space and allow for future growth.

In seeking to improve performance, manageability and control without increasing power consumption and overloading data center resources, GBMC will be doubling the number of its current blade servers, standardizing on HP ProLiant blades.

"GBMC is planning on using blade servers to run all of our mission-critical applications in the future," said Mike Hebrank, chief information officer, GBMC. "Blade servers provide us with additional value through their compelling cost-savings potential."

"HP ProLiant blade servers are an ideal foundation to build more adaptive infrastructure solutions. They are designed with integrated manageability and control to deliver more of the flexibility and efficiency businesses demand today," said Brad Anderson, vice president, HP Industry Standard Servers. "With new innovations built upon industry standards, HP helps enterprises of all sizes maximize the return from their IT infrastructure while helping keep costs in line."

GBMC plans to use the ProLiant blade servers to manage key applications such as Citrix MetaFrame XP, Web servers, SQL Server 2000 database, staffing and scheduling software, and a point-of-sale system for various hospital departments.

"GBMC selected HP ProLiant blade servers for our data center because of their unparalleled performance, agility and cost effectiveness," said Eric French, network manager, GBMC. "The two-processor blades offer more than sufficient disk space and can support the high CPU and RAM requirements for any application we have."

HP management tools, such as the ProLiant Essentials Foundation pack included with every ProLiant server, simplify server deployment and system care. GBMC used the ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Pack to deploy the HP blade servers.

"The HP blades and ProLiant Essentials software have improved the flexibility, manageability and control of our network," said French. "In addition, the HP blades not only save space in our data center, but enable us to save power requirements and produce significantly less heat in the data center."

GBMC also uses HP ProLiant DL380 servers, HP OpenView management software, the HP StorageWorks ma8000 storage solution and HP Compaq business desktop and notebook PCs.

HP offers the industry's broadest portfolio of blade servers for front-end, mid-tier and back-end application deployments. Additional information about HP ProLiant servers is available at http://www.hp.com/products/servers/platforms.

About Greater Baltimore Medical Center

The Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) is a non-profit health care organization, licensed and accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation for Health Care Organizations. With more than 300 licensed beds and 1,400 physicians, GBMC offers services in women's health, surgery, cancer, urgent/emergency care and medicine. More information about GBMC is available at http://www.gbmc.org.

About HP

HP delivers vital technology for business and life. The company's solutions span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing for consumers, enterprises and small and medium business. For the last four quarters, HP revenue totaled $70.4 billion. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that the proposed contract may not be entered into on the terms currently contemplated or at all; that the market for the sale of certain products and services may not develop as expected; that development and performance of these products and services may not proceed as planned; and other risks that are described from time to time in HP's Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to HP's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended January 31, 2003, and subsequently filed reports. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, HP's results could differ materially from HP's expectations in these statements. HP assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.