University of Illinois Selects HP Kayak PC Workstations for Cutting-Edge Supercomputing Research; HP Kayak PC Workstations Outperform Compaq, Dell and Others

Business Wire, March 16, 1998

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 1998-- Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that the University of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) selected HP Kayak XU PC Workstations as its preferred strategic platform to conduct research on supercomputing performance.

The NCSA is a leader in the development and deployment of cutting-edge, high-performance computing, networking and information technologies. The HP Kayak XU PC Workstations will be used by the NCSA to explore techniques in high-performance computing. The university conducts research on Microsoft(R) Windows NT(R) clustered-computing technologies that are expected to lead to performance breakthroughs. Specifically, the research will look at data-intensive applications, scalability for enterprise applications and large-scale systems management.

Andrew A. Chien, professor of the Department of Computer Science and NCSA at the University of Illinois and project manager, selected the HP Kayak XU PC Workstations after testing systems from HP, Compaq, Dell, Micron and Gateway in several system-performance areas, including memory, processor mediated input/output and disk throughput. Chien's team created an extensive Web page to compare testing results and to ensure that the best-performing PC workstation was selected for their research. More information on the results can be found at www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/projects/comm/hcl.html.

"In our extensive tests, the HP Kayak XU PC Workstation recorded the best performance among the systems we tested," said Chien. "The HP Kayak XU PC Workstation excelled under the intensity of our research and experiments."

The HP Kayak XU PC Workstation, with dual 300MHz Intel Pentium(R) II processors, 440LX AGP-based system architecture and Matrox Millennium II graphics card, is optimized for expert professionals using information-rich 2-D business graphics. It also features independent Wide Ultra SCSI (40MB/s) controllers, super-fast 4.5GB or 9.1GB 10,00 rpm hard-disk drives and SDRAM ECC DIMM Memory. The HP Kayak XU PC Workstation also comes with dual 333MHz Pentium II processors for the ultimate in high-performance power.

NO. 1 WORKSTATION VENDOR

HP was the leading supplier of workstations worldwide (UNIX(R) system and Windows NT(R)-based workstations)(1), as well as the world leader in Windows NT-based workstations(2), according to International Data Corp.'s 1997 Workstation Market Year in Review(3). In addition, HP captured the No. 1 position in the 1997 worldwide Windows NT workstation market(4), according to Dataquest's Workstation Quarterly Shipments Report(5).

ABOUT THE HP KAYAK PC WORKSTATION FAMILY

The HP Kayak PC Workstation family (XA, XU and XW) boasts many new, HP-engineered technologies that dramatically enhance performance, including the following:

-- a system architecture built on the new Pentium II 440LX AGPset, which provides the fastest graphics on the Intel platform;

-- HP VISUALIZE fx4 graphics subsystem; and

-- HP FastRAID, an innovative SCSI subsystem that brings RAID technology together with HP TopTools, a standards-based desktop manageability software that allows MIS staff to manage inventory, configuration and security from any location on the network.

ABOUT THE NCSA

The National Computational Science Alliance is a partnership to prototype an advanced computational infrastructure for the twenty-first century and includes more than 50 academic, government and industry research partners from across the United States. The Alliance receives core funding from the National Science Foundation and cost-sharing at partner institutions.

ABOUT HP

HP is the official information-technology hardware and maintenance supplier to the 1998 World Cup soccer tournament.

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 123,300 employees and had revenue of $42.9 billion in its 1997 fiscal year.

Information about HP Kayak PC Workstations can be found on the World Wide Web at www.hp.com/go/kayak. -0- (1) Based on unit shipments.

(2) Based on revenue and unit shipments.

(3) Based on a restatement of preliminary estimates issued from IDC's Workstations Year in Review report, released Jan. 8, 1998.

(4) Based on revenue, unit shipments and growth.

(5) Based on Dataquest's 1997 Workstations Quarterly Shipments Report, released March 2, 1998. -0-

Note To Editors: Microsoft is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. Windows NT is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft corp. Pentium is a U.S. registered trademark of Intel Corp. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.

NOTE: Web links in this release may take you outside the Hewlett-Packard Company Web site. HP does not control and is not responsible for information outside the HP Web site.

CONTACT: Copithorne & Bellows for HP

Isabelle Tadmoury, 617/450-4300