hp outlines itanic,hp/ux, alphaserver beans

May xx, 2002

Dear

With the merger of Compaq Computer and Hewlett-Packard now a reality, I would like to summarize our plans for the new HP portfolio of enterprise products.

I am excited about the opportunities that the new HP will have to work with you to deliver enterprise solutions that address your most demanding business critical requirements, particularly in areas of lasting value such as cost-effective and pervasive management, continuous and secure operation of your IT investments, efficient utilization of your IT resources, and lowest TCO as a result of our ItaniumTM Processor Family strategy. Over time we will be able to increasingly combine the strengths of both companies to help you take advantage of the latest technology while at the same time leveraging your current IT investments.

The HP Server product roadmaps announced in September 2001 will be executed without change. HP Server customers will be able to take advantage of future industry leading PA-RISC and ItaniumTM Processor Family technology products upgrades. In addition, plans to continue enhancing HP-UX's robustness, functionality, and compatibility remain unchanged. HP-UX customers should expect that leading Tru64™ UNIXâ technologies, such as TruCluster and AdvFS, will be integrated into HP-UX to further enhance its business critical value.

Our plans for the HP e3000 and MPE operating system is to continue implementing the existing roadmap, delivering the performance and functionality planned in the 2002-2003 timeframe. Moving forward, we will focus on helping our HP e3000 customers migrate to ItaniumTM-based HP Servers, using innovative migration programs.

The Compaq NonStopTM Himalaya servers will now be called hp NonStopTM servers. We will deliver on the NonStop server roadmap announced by Compaq in June 2001. This includes significant performance speed-ups and functionality enhancements on MIPS, and the transition to ItaniumTM Processor Family. We are well underway porting the hp NonStopTM Kernel operating system to the ItaniumTM Processor Family. With application compatibility and ServerNet, today's hp NonStop servers will run seamlessly with future ItaniumTM-based hp NonStop servers, protecting your investment in existing and future applications.

The Compaq AlphaServer systems will now be called hp AlphaServer systems. We will deliver the AlphaServer roadmap announced in June 2001 along with the associated feature enhancements of Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS™ on AlphaServer. This includes the EV7 and EV79 versions of the Alpha processor, which will be used in future “Marvel” systems, supporting Tru64 UNIX, OpenVMS, and Linux. We will sell Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS-based hp AlphaServer systems as long as there is customer demand, which we expect to be at least several years beyond the introduction of EV79, with support for at least five years beyond that. For ItaniumTM, we will integrate leading technology from Tru64 UNIX, such as TruClusters and AdvFS into HP-UX and will offer a seamless migration path to HP-UX on ItaniumTM with a full suite of migration tools and services. Finally, hp OpenVMS remains a strategic product and we will continue the port of OpenVMS to ItaniumTM--based hp servers. We will also migrate our hp OpenVMS application portfolio to ItaniumTM and will provide new tools and services to assist customers who desire to migrate to HP-UX.

As we move forward, we will provide you with detailed transition plans that will ensure a smooth evolution of your current IT infrastructure to Itanium™-based server solutions running your operating system of choice.

Sincerely,

Scott Stallard

Senior Vice President

Business Critical Systems