HP’S UNWAVERING COMMITMENT TO HP-UX, ITANIUM & PA-RISC

You may receive questions or hear concerns about HP’s commitment to its UNIX server business because of recent reduced staffing at one of the HP-UX R&D labs in Richardson, Texas,.

HP’s commitment to the UNIX server business is unwavering and strong. Please find below a drawer statement with a statement you can use regarding this issue. This document is internal only, for background in addressing questions. Do not distribute this document externally, and please use discretion internally on a need to know basis.

DRAWER STATEMENT

HP-UX, ITANIUM & PA-RISC

The decision to reduce HP’s R&D Laboratory for HP-UX in Richardson Texas was to consolidate staff and achieve greater operational efficiency. It is an example of how HP is making important strategic choices in the areas of acquisitions, divestitures and outsourcing to ensure that each business has the resources it needs to deliver on the company’s strategy.

HP is NOT shifting its server strategy and/or its R&D focus. HP remains absolutely committed to HP-UX and the IPF/Itanium as the “way of the future” and has recently introduced the industry’s broadest portfolio of Itanium products and has more than 2000 engineers worldwide focused on the platform/technology.

HP has also increased the focus on HP-UX for IPF and the current changes are a way of accomplishing our IPF strategy with a lower cost structure and geographic consolidation.

In a like way HP continues its unwavering commitment to HP-UX for PA-RISC. In the last 24 months alone, HP has enhanced its HP-UX offering by introducing HP-UX11i, per-processor licensing, the industry’s first virtual partitioning scheme, a three operating environment structure and HP-UX on Itanium, the only UNIX on the new IPF architecture.

HP-UX 11i is acknowledged as the #1 UNIX in the world by several influential sources and with HP’s commitment and continued investment levels of hundreds of millions of dollars in this area, HP’s UNIX server offering will just get stronger.

In the case of the HP-UX R&D lab, some Richardson based engineers have been offered an opportunity to relocate to Ft. Collins. Engineers based in Ft. Collins are already steeped in the HP-UX operating system, PA-RISC and the Itanium platform.

What you see is HP working more efficiently, consolidating and building new business models. You will continue to see us do this as the economic environment demands. Our commitment to our customers, IPF/Itanium, HP-UX and PA-RISC, however, remains unchanged and forms the basis of the lasting value we deliver to customers and the competitive differentiation on which we will lead.