HP Cuts Prices Across Its Desktop, Notebook and Workstation PC Lines by Up to 20 Percent

Business Wire, Dec 21, 1998

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 1998--

New Low Pricing Makes the Company's Pentium II and

Celeron Processor-based PCs Even Better Values

Hewlett-Packard Company today announced price cuts of up to 20 percent across its PC product lines. The reductions cover HP Vectra corporate PCs, HP Brio business PCs, HP Kayak PC Workstations and HP OmniBook notebook PCs based on Intel Pentium(R) II and Celeron processors. Effective immediately, these cuts underline HP's leadership in delivering award-winning PCs at the lowest-possible prices.

An HP Vectra VE corporate PC with a Celeron 333MHz processor, a 4.3GB hard-disk drive, 32MB SDRAM and industry-leading 3Com Etherlink XL 10/100 TX LAN card now is expected to sell for an estimated street price of as low as $774 (U.S.), a drop of 20 percent. In addition, a powerful, highly manageable HP Vectra VL PC with Pentium II 400MHz processor, 4.3GB hard-disk drive, 64MB SDRAM and Windows NT(R) 4.0 now, for the first time, is expected to sell for under the $1,500 (U.S.) price point, a drop of 3 percent.

An HP Brio business PC with Celeron 333MHz processor, 4.3GB hard-disk drive and 32MB SDRAM is expected to sell for an estimated street price of $699 (U.S.), a drop of nearly 15 percent.

A high-end, feature-packed HP Kayak XA-s Workstation PC with 450MHz Pentium II processor, a 9.1GB SCSI hard-disk drive, 128MB SDRAM and PERMEDIAN 2a graphics controller now is expected to sell for an estimated street price of $3,100 (U.S.), a drop of 7 percent. The HP Kayak XA PC Workstation, equipped with a 350MHz Pentium II processor, 4.3GB hard-disk drive, 64MB SRAM and Matrox Millennium G200 graphics, now is expected to sell for an estimated street price of $1,740, a drop of more than 4 percent.

HP also recently cut prices on several of its popular OmniBook notebook PCs. Prices were dropped nearly 9 percent on the powerful HP OmniBook 4100 notebook PC, and it now is expected to carry an estimated street price of $3,499 (U.S.). It features a 266MHz Intel Pentium processor, 6GB hard-disk drive, 32MB RAM and a 14-inch TFT display.

With today's price cuts, HP is passing along recent price reductions from suppliers, in addition to savings gained through its Extended Solutions Partnership program, which continues to deliver HP quality and reduced costs for resellers and customers. Delivering cost, availability and flexibility benefits, the program enables reseller partners to provide custom-configured solutions to better meet customers' exact price and performance needs.

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global provider of computing, Internet and intranet solutions, services, communications products and measurement solutions, all of which are recognized for excellence in quality and support. HP has 124,600 employees and had revenue of $47.1 billion in its 1998 fiscal year.

Information about HP and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

Pentium is a U.S. registered trademark of Intel Corp.

Windows NT is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.