Compaq Announces New Support for Breakthrough Intelligent Manageability Features; Compaq Partners with Microsoft, Arcada and Cheyenne on Proactive Tape Backup Solution.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 1995 -- Continuing its drive to simplify the management of PCs on the network and significantly lower PC ownership costs, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) today announced broad support for a breakthrough data protection solution. By working with software leaders Microsoft, Arcada and Cheyenne, Compaq provides its customers and the industry with another innovative and unprecedented standards-based desktop management capability -- Proactive Tape Backup -- under Windows 95(a).

Tape backup and restore software from Arcada and Cheyenne -- and systems software from Compaq -- work in concert with the IntelliSafe hard drive to automatically backup the hard drive contents, if an impending hard drive failure is detected, without intervention by a user or network administrator. This innovative capability will be a standard feature in Windows 95 and available to any customer using a hard drive with the predictive and diagnostics specifications that Compaq pioneered and introduced as part of its Intelligent Manageability.

Proactive Tape Backup will allow customers to store valuable information at their desktop PC, knowing the data is protected, as well as simplify network management and lower PC ownership costs by minimizing unplanned downtime and greatly reducing the need for disk recovery.

"Earlier this year, Compaq introduced a collection of innovative desktop management tools and features -- called Intelligent Manageability -- on our new Deskpros and launched an initiative with the leading LAN management software companies to ensure Compaq customers have a fully integrated and seamless desktop management solution, " said Kevin Bohren, vice president, Compaq Computer Corporation. "Proactive tape backup is an excellent example of how Compaq continues to work with its partners to standardize a unique management feature it developed to benefit the whole industry."

"Microsoft and Compaq -- both recognized leaders in the PC industry -- have a long history of working together to bring useful innovation to the marketplace," said Brad Silverberg, senior vice president, Microsoft Corporation. "We believe Compaq's Deskpros and Intelligent Manageability, together with Windows 95, will provide customers with easy-to-use, highly-managed PCs and applaud the leadership role Compaq has taken to bring these innovations to the marketplace."

"Arcada has worked closely with Compaq and Microsoft to ensure this new proactive tape backup feature of Windows 95 is well integrated with and fully supported by Backup Exec, " said Bob Brown, vice president of data management products for Arcada. "Arcada's SMART Client is a result of partnering with Compaq to provide automatic data protection before a hard disk failure occurs. In today's business environments, information created at individual client workstations is critical and organizations can not afford the risk of losing that data. The proactive backup ability provided by Arcada's SMART Client ensures that their data is secure and protected."

"As a member of Compaq's Desktop Management Solutions Partners Program, we have seen how Compaq brings together the right partners to satisfy the management needs of its corporate customers," said James P. McNiel, executive vice president, Business Development for Cheyenne. "With our ArcSolo backup and restore software, customers can once again be assured that all the breakthrough features of Compaq's Intelligent Manageability solution will work flawlessly under Windows 95."

Industry Continues to Support Compaq's Intelligent Manageability Strategy

Further enhancing the tools that enable customers to better manage their networks, Compaq recently added ASI, a leader in lifecycle management software, to its Desktop Management Solutions Partner Program. With ASI's AssetPRO software, Compaq customers can actually track all asset related costs and quantify the savings realized by purchasing Deskpros. AssetPRO is available exclusively from Entex Information Services, a provider of PC and network solutions that offers complete Asset Management Services to large corporations.

In another recent announcement, five leading hard drive manufacturers -- Seagate, Conner, Quantum, IBM and Western Digital -- announced they were standardizing on an advanced diagnostics technology, called SMART, that Compaq pioneered in conjunction with Seagate, Conner and Quantum. Introduced on the IntelliSafe hard drives, this technology was designed to prevent critical loss of data, enable hard drives to predict and alert customers to certain types of failures, and initiate the Proactive Tape Backup procedure, when combined with the right hardware and software tools.

Compaq Plans to Enhance Compaq Insight Manager

Compaq today also announced that Compaq Insight Manager, a standards-based, easy-to-use server management application, will be enhanced to provide fault management of Compaq Deskpros running Windows 95. Systems administrators will be able to directly monitor the health and performance of PCs on the network and diagnose and predict potential problems, such as hard drive failures and temperature abnormalities, allowing them to proactively schedule maintenance, minimize unplanned downtime and greatly improve overall network manageability.

Company Background

Compaq Computer Corporation is the world's largest supplier of personal computers, offering desktop PCs, portable PCs and servers. Founded in 1982, the Company reported 1994 worldwide sales of $10.9 billion. Compaq products are sold and supported in more than 100 countries through a network of more than 38,000 Compaq marketing partners. Compaq also sells directly to customers through Compaq Direct Plus at 1-800-888-5858. Compaq provides 24-hour customer support and can be reached through the Compaq forums on America Online, CompuServe, Internet (http://www.compaq.com), and Prodigy, or by calling 1-800-345-1518. -0-

(a) When available

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