Compaq Delivers Business-to-Business Electronic Procurement Solutions to Streamline Purchasing of Goods and Services for Enterprises Worldwide.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 7, 1999--

Teams with Clarus, Commerce One and Microsoft for Best-of-Breed

Electronic Procurement Solution

Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE:CPQ) today announced a complete electronic procurement solution for business-to-business purchasing, designed to help customers drastically reduce the costs and resources associated with procurement of non-production goods and services. Compaq also announced it is working with Clarus Corporation, Commerce One, and Microsoft in the creation and delivery of these solutions.

Today's announcement is the latest example of Compaq delivering on its NonStop(R) strategy for continuous computing. "By streamlining procurement systems as part of an overall strategy for Web-enabling their businesses, our customers stand to reduce the cost of processing purchase orders by up to 70 percent and the cost of goods and services purchased by 10 to 30 percent, while doubling or tripling their return on investment," said Frank Lanza, Worldwide eCommerce Services Practice Director, Compaq Enterprise Solutions and Services Group. "Compaq electronic procurement solutions enable our customers to reduce buying cycle time and reallocate resources to other, higher value-add purchasing functions. The bottom line savings in time, resources and overhead are of tremendous value to our customers and their vendors."

According to the Aberdeen Group, maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) supplies such as office products, computer equipment and maintenance supplies typically account for 30 to 35 percent of a manufacturer's total expenses and can account for more than half of the spending by service and municipal organizations(1).

IT Services Experience and Expertise

In designing the electronic procurement solutions, Compaq has drawn on its more than 20 years of experience and expertise in providing secure networking solutions and system integration services, helping some of the world's largest companies reduce complexity in their technology investments to meet their business objectives. The electronic procurement solutions are implemented with the combined capabilities of 7,000 Compaq service professionals recently realigned to focus on NonStop business operations, using advanced tools and methodologies to deliver a full portfolio of lifecycle services.

These lifecycle services include planning, solution design, proof-of-concept pilot, project management, implementation, and rollout across the enterprise as well as on-going support and business critical services to ensure that customers' entire IT infrastructures are operating at maximum availability. In addition, Compaq can manage a customer's entire solution and infrastructure on an outsourced basis through its FutureSourcingSM services. FutureSourcing offers customers optional IT capability, capacity and coverage and allows them to concentrate their resources on core strategic business areas.

Additionally, Compaq provides the expertise to leverage the underlying technology infrastructure on which the electronic procurement software is implemented. This expertise includes extensive experience in developing Intranets that link applications to users, and integrating enterprise resource planning applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle. Compaq also offers longstanding experience in end-to-end security solutions to guard against fraudulent or unauthorized use, including expertise in such key technologies as firewalls, virtual private networks, and public key infrastructure.

Partnering with Leading eCommerce Software Vendors

Compaq Services' strategy of working with multiple leading eCommerce vendors provides customers the flexibility of a purchasing model that works best for them. In addition, it enables faster time to proven solution for customers and one stop shopping even for a global deployment. For the electronic procurement solution, Compaq is combining its systems integration expertise with three companies known for their leadership in electronic procurement solutions and technology: Clarus Corporation, Commerce One, and Microsoft Corporation.

Compaq, working with Clarus Corporation and Commerce One, enables companies to significantly reduce operational costs and increase efficiency by automating the entire indirect goods and services supply chain. With an end-to-end electronic purchasing solution, customers can reduce administration costs and improve data collection and reporting on MRO expenditures. The result is a strategic competitive advantage and rapid return on investment.

"Partnering with Compaq allows Clarus to provide a complete solution not only to Fortune 500 customers, but also to thriving middle- and small-market organizations," said Steve Hornyak, Clarus Vice President of Strategy and Business Development. "Clarus will continue to support business-to-business eCommerce channel initiatives from industry leaders such as Compaq."

"Many of Commerce One's customers are deploying our solution on Compaq platforms. We are excited to support Compaq on their NonStop initiative and are working actively with Compaq to jointly offer highly scalable and available business-to-business eCommerce solutions and specialized integration services to Compaq's worldwide customer base," said Mark Hoffman, Commerce One Chief Executive Officer.

Compaq, the first company to offer Worldwide Prime Integrator capability for Microsoft Windows NT Server-based solutions, is building on its existing strategic alliance with Microsoft and leveraging its Intranet Services for Microsoft Site Server 3.0 Commerce Edition. Microsoft provides the commerce middleware to integrate eCommerce business processes and applications. Compaq, with more than 2500 Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers and Microsoft Certified Systems Developers, provides a single point of contact and accountability for a project.

"Customers can now benefit from the combination of Compaq's Windows NT platforms, worldwide solutions and services, and partnerships with Commerce One and Clarus to implement a complete electronic procurement solution to securely automate their purchasing function," said Todd Weatherby, Group Marketing Manager for Microsoft's Business Solutions Group. "Compaq provides the worldwide expertise and resources to plan, design, implement, and manage robust business-to-business eCommerce solutions based upon Microsoft's market leading eCommerce applications platform and middleware."

Compaq Background

Compaq Computer Corporation, a Fortune Global 100 company, is the second-largest computer company in the world and the largest global supplier of computer systems. Compaq develops and markets hardware, software, solutions, and services, including industry-leading enterprise computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, enterprise and network electronic procurement solutions, commercial desktop and portable products and consumer PCs. The Company is an industry leader in environmentally friendly programs and business practices.

Compaq products are sold and supported in more than 100 countries through a network of authorized Compaq marketing partners. Customer support and information about Compaq and its products are available at http://www.compaq.com.

Compaq, Registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

(1) Aberdeen Group Vol.12 #1 2/1/99