HP Cuts Prices More Than 30 Percent On HP CD-Writer Plus 8200i Drives, Adds $199 Entry-Level Product - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, August 30, 1999

Hewlett-Packard Company, the worldwide market leader in CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) drives, Monday announced price cuts of more than 30 percent on the HP CD-Writer Plus 8200i. In an effort to make CD-RW drives more affordable for a larger number of users, the estimated street price of the HP CD-Writer Plus 8200i will drop from $349 (U.S.) to $229, effective Sept. 1.

In addition, the HP CD-Writer Plus 8250i will be added to the portfolio at $199 (available only in the United States). The HP CD-Writer Plus 8200i and 8250i are internal rewritable IDE drives that read data at up to 24X transfer speed and write and rewrite at up to 4X transfer speed.

The price cut and addition of the entry-level 8250i drive reflect HP' s proactive strategy to offer home and business users a broad range of CD-RW products with a variety of performance levels, connection options and affordable price points. In addition, increased demand for CD-RW drives and lower manufacturing prices have enabled HP to pass savings on to its customers. HP's CD-Writer Plus 8200i and 8250i drives are targeted for consumers who want an entry-level CD-RW drive with good performance at a very affordable price.

"By increasing the number of entry-level drives at lower price points, HP is demonstrating its leadership in the CD-RW market and offering superior optical storage solutions for the desktop at competitive prices," said Perry Ralph, product-marketing manager for HP's CD-RW products. "As the worldwide market leader in CD-RW drives, HP continues to provide the industry's best combination of cutting-edge technology, compatibility, flexibility and storage capacity."

CD-RW drives allow users to create, write, rewrite, store, manage and share data, music, photos on a CD just as they would save information to a floppy. CDs can store up to 650MB of data -- the equivalent of more than 400 standard high-density floppy disks, or 20,000 scanned pages of text. The speed of CD-RW drives is equal to that of a CD-ROM drive, allowing users to migrate to CD-RW drives without sacrificing performance.

More information is available at www.hp.com/go/cdr.> Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home -- is focused on capitalizing on the opportunities of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic services.

HP had computer-related revenue of $39.5 billion in its 1998 fiscal year.

HP has 123,000 employees worldwide and had total revenue of $47.1 billion in its 1998 fiscal year. Information about HP, its products and the company's Year 2000 program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.