PALO ALTO, Calif., Jul 14, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- HP (NYSE:HPQ) is the worldwide market leader for High Performance Technical Computing (HPTC) in 2002, according to IDC. The market research firm's "Worldwide High Performance Systems Technical Computing Census 2002" report shows that HP commands 34 percent revenue share (based on the combined revenue of HP and Compaq, which operated as separate companies through the first quarter of 2002) and is the top performer with more than a five percentage point lead over IBM.

IDC Research Vice President Chris Willard said, "Last year, HP made important inroads into the HPC market, and its merger with Compaq solidified the vendor's leading position in the technical enterprise and departmental market segments. Moreover, the addition of the SC-system to its product portfolio enabled HP to enter the high-end capability space in 2002. The company has also entered the HPC cluster space as well, which should represent important opportunities for future growth."

In addition to ranking No. 1 in market share overall, HP leads all vendors in two technical computing market segments with 53 percent in the technical enterprise segment and 35 percent in the technical departmental segment.

IDC defines technical enterprise servers as capacity systems that sell for $1 million or more. HP's No. 1 ranking in this segment reflects the very strong performance of the HP Superdome systems, according to IDC.

Technical departmental servers are defined as capacity systems that sell for less than $250,000. IDC attributes HP's No. 1 position in this segment to a significant number of Intel(R)-based HP Linux clusters, including the continued ramp up of Itanium(R) 2-based HP systems into the HPTC market.

According to IDC, the total HPTC market for calendar year 2002 was $4.7 billion.

"At HP, we provide our customers with a choice of platforms, interconnects, applications and system management software, along with strong price/performance and extensive domain expertise in HPTC," said Steve Joachims, director of marketing, HP High Performance Technical Computing Division. "We expect our market strength to continue in 2003, especially with the launch of our new Itanium 2 product set and robust, tested and supported Linux clusters for HPTC. These products provide the best performance and price/performance for a large and growing list of ISV applications for HPTC on HP-UX and Linux."

Today's IDC market share results complement HP's No. 1 position on the TOP500 Supercomputer Sites list,(1) which for the third consecutive year shows HP with more sites than any other technology provider.

HP posted 159 entries on the list -- more than 30 percent of the sites -- with HP Superdome servers (127 entries) and HP AlphaServer systems (21 entries, three of those in the top 10) leading the way. HP has more sites (four) in the top 10 than any other vendor. In addition, for the first time an installation based on HP's new Itanium 2-based systems made it into the top 10. This installation, an HP rx2600 cluster, is at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.

HP provides a broad spectrum of high performance technical computing solutions, from workgroup computing and enterprise computing to supercomputing. Supported by an extensive portfolio of market-leading independent software vendors and application software, HP serves a large and growing HPTC customer base.

More information about these solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/hptc .

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 .

(1) The complete listing of TOP500 Supercomputer sites is available at http://www.top500.org .

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