press release

HP First to Offer Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstations for Itanium 2-based Systems

Companies' Alliance Gives 64-bit Customers Flexibility and Cost-savings with Open Source Technology

PALO ALTO, Calif., and RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 17, 2002

HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT) today announced that Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation for Itanium 2 is available on Intel® Itanium® 2-based HP workstations -- the HP Workstation zx2000 and HP Workstation zx6000. This alliance makes HP the only company in the industry to provide its Itanium 2-based workstation customers the extended capacity of 64-bit computing along with all the advantages and cost savings of an open-source environment.

Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation for Itanium 2-based HP workstations delivers fast compute performance for scientists, engineers and others running high-floating point applications that require a large memory bandwidth and memory latency. By coupling Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation for Itanium 2-based HP workstations, customers receive one of the industry's lowest cost, highest memory capacity solutions currently available for technical and scientific computing.

"In the past, HP technical and scientific customers have had some memory limitations that prohibited them from addressing large problems," said Barry Crume, worldwide product marketing manager for Itanium 2-based workstations, HP Workstation Business Unit. "Now, with HP and Red Hat's solution for Itanium 2-based HP workstations, technical computing customers should be able to focus on their complex analysis applications that involve large data sets."

Itanium 2-based HP workstations continue to increase performance with an estimated world-leading floating point SPECfp2000 score of 1,400, achieved on the HP Workstation zx6000 1 GHz running Red Hat Advanced Workstation and Intel 7.0 beta compilers.⁽¹⁾

"Itanium 2-based HP systems with Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation deliver performance that is unprecedented at these price levels," said Michael Evans, vice president of business development, Red Hat. "These systems are the ideal solution for engineers, developers and designers looking to trade up from their proprietary workstations to the benefits of industry standard hardware running open source software."

As an introductory offering, HP is offering special promotional pricing through Oct. 18, 2002, in the United States, on specified configurations of HP workstations running the Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation for Itanium 2. More about the pricing for these systems is available at http://www.hp.com/go/redhat.

Webinar: Value of 64-bit Linux on Itanium 2-based systems

To help customers explore the potential of Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstations on Itanium 2-based HP workstations, HP will host a Web-based seminar titled "Value of a 64-bit Linux on Itanium 2-based systems" on Sept. 18.

Linux kernel author David Mosberger, a senior research scientist at HP Labs, will compare and contrast the differences and the value of 64-bit Linux on Itanium 2-based systems relative to earlier architectures that support Linux. Registration for the Webinar is available at http://www.hp.com/go/redhat.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world's premier open source and Linux provider. Red Hat is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. and has offices worldwide. Please visit Red Hat on the Web at www.redhat.com.

About HP

HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. HP completed its merger transaction involving Compaq Computer Corp. on May 3, 2002. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

⁽¹⁾ The HP Workstation zx6000 was a standard configuration, tested with the SPECfp2000 benchmark and produced a result of 1,400.

Intel and Itanium are U.S. registered trademarks of Intel Corp.

SPECfp2000 is a registered trademark of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation.

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 of these products and services may not proceed as planned; and other risks that are described from time to time in HP's Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to HP's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended April 30, 2002 and reports filed subsequent to HP's annual report on Form 10-K, as amended on January 30, 2002, for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2001. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, HP's results could differ materially from HP's expectations in these statements. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.