HP and Microsoft Break Performance, Scalability and Price Barriers for High-end Computing

PALO ALTO, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash., May 21, 2003 HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) today announced the world record benchmark result of 707,102 transactions per minute (tpmC) on the Transaction Processing Performance Councils TPC-C benchmark, (1) establishing a new high water mark for commercial transaction processing on a non-clustered system.

At a price to performance ratio of $9.13/tpmC, customers using HP Superdome, Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 and Windows Server™
2003 Datacenter Edition can achieve industry-leading performance and scalability at a lower cost than any other high-end solution on the market.

Building on their innovation, HP and Microsoft demonstrated the most powerful transaction performance solution with an HP Superdome server based on the forthcoming Intel® Itanium®
2 processor 6M (code-named Madison), running the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition for Itanium-based Systems and SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit), with HP StorageWorks MSA1000 storage.

“HPs strong alliances with Microsoft and Intel enable us to deliver enterprise-class solutions based on open standards that meet the needs of our customers,”
said Scott Stallard, senior vice president, HP Enterprise Storage and Servers.
“While competitors continue to tout expensive, proprietary systems, HPs portfolio of industry-standard solutions on IA-32 ProLiant and Itanium 2-based HP servers offer customers the agility, accountability and return on investment they expect in building an adaptive enterprise.”

“Microsoft and HP made history today with an unprecedented 707,102 transactions per minute,”
said Gordon Mangione, corporate vice president for SQL Server at Microsoft.
“We are very excited about this result because it continues to demonstrate to customers Microsofts price/performance advantage over proprietary solutions. This, combined with our world record clustered result, solidifies SQL Server and Windows Server as the true price/performance leader for database systems.”

Todays result with Microsoft builds on the performance leadership the HP Superdome server has established since its introduction three years ago. The server is on track to deliver up to triple its current commercial performance over the next several years. Through simple processor upgrades, Superdome customers can benefit from long-term performance scalability, flexibility and investment protection over competitive offerings. This summer, HP plans to release the Superdome server based on the Itanium 2 processor 6M (Madison).

SQL Server and Windows Server have proven world-class scalability

in

scale-up and scale-out solutions, with leading price/performance across the industry benchmarks including todays benchmark result with HP. The dramatic increase in speed and performance has been fueled by

the recently announced 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2000. This increased performance comes at a low cost of ownership for customers, as Microsoft server software is more manageable and less expensive to own and operate than proprietary systems.

The scalability and price/performance advantage of 32-bit

and 64-bit Microsoft platforms enable customers to choose software that will grow along with their needs

as they deploy data-intensive applications.

HP and Microsofts solution demonstrates the ability to scale performance across transaction processing workload levels. With todays result, HP and Microsoft hold the top position in single-system TPC-C benchmarks running one, two, four and 64 CPUs as well as the top three positions in clustered TPC-C benchmarks all running Intel Xeon and Itanium processors. (2) This range of performance leadership provides assurance to customers that HP and Microsoft can help customers meet their needs as their IT requirements grow.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software any time, any place and on any device.

About HP

HP delivers vital technology for business and life. The companys 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 .

(1) All components used in the benchmark will be generally available by Oct. 23, 2003.

(2) All of these results are with Windows and SQL Server database:

HP ProLiant ML350 G3 19,526.27 tpmC @ $2.47/tpmC, available May 12, 2003

  • HP ProLiant ML350 G3 39,006.54 tpmC @ $4.72/tpmC, available May 12, 2003

  • HP Server rx5670 121,065.13 tpmC, at $4.97/tpmC, available Aug. 1, 2003

  • HP ProLiant DL760-900-256P 709,220.08 tpmC @ $14.96/tpmC, available Oct. 15, 2001

  • HP ProLiant DL760-900-192P 567,882.56 tpmC @ $14.04/tpmC, available Oct. 15, 2001

  • HP ProLiant DL760-900-128P 410,769.88 tpmC @ $13.02/tpmC, available Oct. 15, 2001

Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. Intel and Itanium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. TPC is a registered trademark of the Transaction Processing Performance Council.

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 HPs Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to HPs 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, HPs results could differ materially from HPs expectations in these statements. HP assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsofts corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsofts Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.asp .

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