News release

HP to Streamline Storage Management with New Developers Program

Industry's First Program Based on Storage Management Initiative Specification to Accelerate SMI-S Adoption for Management of Multivendor Network Storage

HP (NYSE:HPQ) has introduced the first developers program completely based on an open, industry-standard interface across storage hardware and software. The HP SMI-S Developers Program facilitates partner development of technologies based on the Storage Management Interface Specification (SMI-S), a secure and reliable interface that allows storage management systems to identify, classify, monitor and control physical and logical resources in a network storage environment.

SMI-S is expected to be ratified by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) this summer.

The goal of the HP SMI-S Developers Program is to accelerate the adoption of SMI-S-based solutions that simplify the interoperability challenges developers face in building storage solutions, thus streamlining management of multivendor network storage. Open to qualified HP partners, program membership today includes AppIQ, BMC Software, CreekPath Systems, Storability Software and VERITAS Software.

"Customers want an open, standard way to manage their complex storage environments and HP has responded by establishing the first partner program for delivering management interoperability via SMI-S," said Don Langeberg, director of marketing, HP Storage Software Division. "Our partners share in this goal and look to HP's leadership to help them deliver standards-compliant products to market quickly and with the most efficient use of their resources."

The HP SMI-S Developers Program enables system integrators and independent software and hardware vendors to shorten their time to market and lower development and testing costs by removing the need to integrate incompatible interfaces into their products.

Participating partners can leverage HP's global marketing resources to expand the revenue and market potential of their SMI-S-based HP solutions. The result is that enterprise customers will be able to base their storage purchasing decisions on business needs rather than proprietary technologies and features.

Based on the current SMI-S draft, the program gives partners a competitive head start in developing storage management applications that interoperate with HP storage arrays, including the HP StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA), Extended Platform (XP), Virtual Array (VA) and Enterprise Modular Array (EMA) families.

The program also offers qualified partners access to SMI-S-based HP storage array interfaces as well as technical and marketing support to enable them to quickly offer SMI-S-compliant solutions. HP's goal is to provide SMI-S-enabled interoperability across the full range of StorageWorks systems and software.

In addition, the program delivers a set of services to HP's development partners, including development, support and marketing. A software developer's kit includes early versions of array providers and device management software, sample code providing examples of how partners can write to SMI-S-compliant interfaces, and supplementary documents. Membership is free to qualified HP partners.

"The continued momentum of SMI-S has the potential to restructure the way the industry approaches storage management, shifting from proprietary fixes to standard SAN device interoperability and management," said Roger Reich, chair of the SMI Committee and member of the board of directors, SNIA. "HP continues to drive industry collaboration toward delivering open, standards-based storage solutions. We applaud HP and its program partners in taking the lead to bring SMI-enabled management to market."

SNIA recently accepted the HP interoperability conformance test as its first tool for multivendor use in assessing the conformance of industry products to the SMI-S standard. HP is currently shipping pre-release 1.0 SMI-S interfaces with the HP StorageWorks Disk Array XP and VA families and plans to add SMI-S providers to the StorageWorks EVA and EMA families later this year.

More information about the HP SMI-S Developers Program is available at the HP Developer and Solution Partner Program home page at http://www.hp.com/dspp. Information about the complete family of HP StorageWorks storage solutions is available at http://www.hp.com/go/storage.

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.

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 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.