Compaq Drops ProSignia 300 Prices; Industry Pacesetter Demonstrates Price/Performance Leadership Commitment with Price Reductions of Up to 16 Percent.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 1995 -- Underscoring its corporate commitment to be the price/performance leader in the server market segment, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) today announced price reductions of up to 16 percent on its widely popular workgroup-class server, the Compaq ProSignia 300. According to industry analyst firm, International Data Corporation, Compaq has 29 percent of the entire PC server market and 71 percent of the super-server market, which includes enterprise-capable systems such as the recently introduced Compaq ProLiant 4500.

Price Reductions(a)

The ProSignia 300 is now priced well below competitive products, according to Compaq estimates. For example, the ProSignia 300 5/90 Model 1050 -- configured with a 1.05 GB Fast-SCSI-2 Hard Drive, 16MB RAM, integrated 32-Bit Ethernet NIC, 256 Kbyte secondary Cache, and CD-ROM -- will now be priced at $3,999, and is about:

-- 32 percent below the estimated street price of an IBM PC Server 320,

-- 10 percent below the estimated street price of a DELL PowerEdge SP-2 5/90,

-- 10 percent below the estimated street price of a DEC Prioris XL 5/90,

-- 9 percent below the estimated street price of an AST Manhattan V 5/90.

The ProSignia 300 5/75 Model 1050 -- configured with a 1.05 GB Fast-SCSI-2 Hard Drive, 16MB RAM, integrated 32-Bit Ethernet NIC, 256 Kbyte secondary Cache, and CD-ROM -- will now be priced at $3,549, and is about:

-- 14 percent below the estimated street price of an IBM PC server 300 5/60

-- 11 percent below the estimated street price of an HP NetServer LC 5/66

Price reductions on all ProSignia 300 models are effective immediately.

The ProSignia 300: A Mainstream Workgroup Server Priced Like a

Desktop PC

Introduced in February 1995, the ProSignia 300 server incorporates high-end server dependability and manageability features such as ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) memory, ASR (Automatic Server Recovery) technology, Compaq SmartStart, Compaq Insight Manager, standard CD-ROM and optional rack-mountable platform -- previously found only on higher-end server products. The ProSignia 300 is up to 41 percent faster(b) than competitive systems and is targeted primarily at price-sensitive medium-to-small businesses, as well as small workgroups and remote sites within large companies, that use Novell's NetWare operating system.

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 DirectPlus 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) - All prices are estimated street prices; actual prices will vary. All comparisons are based on comparably equipped products from each manufacturer.

(b) - The ProSignia 300 5/75, configured with a 75 MHz Pentium processor, the Integrated Fast-SCSI-2/P PCI Controller, 16 MB RAM and four 1 GB hard drives, was tested using the standard NetBench 3.0 Disk Mix Test.

Compaq, Registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ProSignia VS, ProSignia, ProLiant, Compaq SmartStart, Compaq Insight Manager are trademarks of Compaq Computer Corporation. Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Pentium is a trademark of Intel Corporation.

CONTACT: Compaq Computer Corporation

John Sweney, Jerele Neeld, Hedy Baker,

Nora Hahn, Rebecca Kopf Nahas,

Mike Berman, Brian Temple, Yvonne Donaldson

713-374-0484

or

Miller Communications

Donna Ruane, David Anderson

617-536-0470

[e-mail]