Compaq's Peter Blackmore memo

"On September 4, Compaq announced that we are merging with Hewlett-Packard to create an eight-seven billion dollar global technology leader. We are very excited about the merger because we believe it will add huge capabilities and superior value for our customers. Going forward, I want to emphasize Compaq's total commitment to your success and protecting your investment.

"This proposed merger in no way alters our plan to standardize the Compaq product lines, including the NonStop Himalaya family, on the Itanium microprocessor from Intel.

"Below are several clear, unequivocal statements we can make today:

· Our commitment is to the NonStop Himalaya roadmap, including significant performance speedups on MIPS and the transition to Itanium-based architecture. We have already begun porting the NonStop Kernel to the Itanium processor family. With binary file compatibility and ServerNet, existing NonStop Himalaya servers will run seamlessly with Itanium™-based NonStop Himalaya servers, protecting your investments in existing and future applications.

· Our commitment is to continue implementing the Alpha roadmap per the current plan-of-record, delivering improved performance and faster implementations of the Alpha microprocessor while continuing to provide the most available, scalable systems at the lowest cost. Specifically, this includes our announced plans for EV7 and EV79 version of the Alpha processor, which will be used in our upcoming “Marvel” systems. As previously announced, these systems will support Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS, as well as Linux. And, we will continue to sell our Alpha systems as long as there is customer demand, which we anticipate to be at least several years beyond the introduction of the EV79 Alpha processor, with support continuing to extend a minimum of five years beyond that.

· Our commitment is to continue implementing our OpenVMS plan-of-record, which includes continued support on the upcoming EV7 and EV79Alpha systems, as well as a continuation of the port and release on Itanium-based systems. We will, as previously stated, migrate our OpenVMS application portfolio, ensuring the ongoing operating environment for our OpenVMS customers and partners.

· Our major focus today for our Tru64 UNIX customers and partners remains unchanged -- to deliver on the Alpha based Tru64 UNIX plan-of-record which includes full support on the upcoming Alpha EV7 and EV79 systems as well as further operating system enhancements for our Alpha-based customers.

· Our new goal for UNIX on Itanium is to have not just the industry's best performance, highest functionality, superior RAS features and unmatched clustering embodied in Tru64 UNIX, but also have increased ISV support and momentum, as well as a general purpose UNIX offering for the Data Center to augment our leading position in HPTC, telecommunications e-business. Therefore, it is our intent to converge Tru64UNIX and HP/UX to a single UNIX offering on Itanium, and to insure a smooth transition and migration from Tru64UNIX Alpha to this converged UNIX on Itanium. We will provide more detailed information on this plan shortly.

"As our track record over multiple decades clearly proves, we understand the importance of making any migration as smooth as possible, bringing the benefits of the new platform while minimizing any disruption during the transition. You have our complete commitment from Compaq in this regard, and you should expect nothing less. " µ