Compaq Reduces U.S. Prices on Popular LTE 5000 Notebooks up to 20 Percent.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar. 3, 1997--Reflecting its continued drive to deliver the industry's best overall value in notebook computing, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) today announced U.S. price reductions of up to 20 percent across its popular flagship family of LTE 5000 high-performance notebook personal computers. With prices now starting at $2,399 (a) on the LTE 5150, Compaq is boosting the price/performance benefits for business customers of its premier line of notebook computers.

"The LTE 5000 has played a key role in Compaq's broad mix of notebook product offerings and has been immensely popular with our customers," said Jim Schraith, Vice President, Compaq North America. "Today's price reductions reinforce our commitment to our customers, our reseller partners and the industry-at-large to lower the total cost of ownership and provide increasing value to our award- winning notebook computers. And with supplies readily available from our resellers, customers can immediately take advantage of these pricing enhancements."

Last August, PC Computing Magazine awarded the LTE 5000 its highest honor -- a five-star rating -- giving it "show stopper" status in its "Multimedia Marvels" category. According to the magazine: "when only the best will do, look no further."

New prices for the LTE 5000 family are as follows:

Model Previous Price New Price Percent Reduction LTE 5150 $2,999 $2,399 20% LTE 5250 3,199 2,699 16% LTE 5280 3,899 3,399 13% LTE 5300 4,399 3,899 11% LTE 5380 4,999 4,199 16% LTE 5400 5,199 4,399 15%

LTE 5000 Price Reductions

The LTE 5000 family, the ultimate portable power tool for mobile professionals, offers customers an impressive array of performance, multimedia and desktop expansion capabilities, built upon a unique MultiBay design. Customers enjoy the ability to customize their notebooks with modular devices that can be shared with either of two expansion base options. Among those devices are a 6X CD-ROM; a second, third or even fourth hard drive with up to 8.6 GB of storage; a second battery; and a removable diskette drive. In addition, the LTE 5000 family is one of the few product lines on the market today which offers a hardware-based MPEG option, which is ideal for use with video-intensive multimedia applications.

At the high-end of the LTE 5000 family, users of Compaq's most recent addition -- the LTE 5400 -- experience the power of a 150 MHz Pentium microprocessor, 512-K Level 2 cache, which improves performance in graphics and processor/memory-intensive applications; a 12.1-inch Color Thin Film Transistor (CTFT) display with 800x600 resolution; 32 MB of RAM; and a 2.16 GB SMART hard drive. The LTE 5400 provides the bandwidth needed for today's intense multimedia challenges and powerful operating systems such as Microsoft's Windows NT.

Compaq's other high-end model, the LTE 5380, provides mobile customers with a notebook computer optimized for graphics-intensive or spreadsheet applications. The LTE 5380 features a 12.1-inch display offering 1024x768 resolution; and comes standard with a 133 MHz Pentium processor; 256-K Level 2 cache; 16MB RAM; and a 2.16 GB SMART hard drive.

Like Compaq's desktop and server families of products, LTE 5000 notebooks offer the advantages of Intelligent Manageability, a unique set of features which reduce customers' total cost of ownership. These features make networked PCs easier to manage and less expensive to own by offering technology in the areas of asset management, security management and fault management.

The asset management component of Intelligent Manageability means that companies can keep an efficient networked inventory of PC hardware and software to help manage large fleets of notebooks. The security management component consists of hardware and software security provisions that deter and detect unauthorized access to data and hardware. Through fault management, all LTE 5000 models are capable of being monitored on the network for temperature changes in case the notebook reaches a critical threshold, in which case both the notebook and network administrators will be notified.

Company Background

Compaq Computer Corporation, a Fortune 100 company, is the fifth largest computer company in the world and the largest global supplier of personal computers, delivering useful innovation through products that connect people with people and people with information. The company is an industry leader in environmentally friendly programs and business practices. Compaq is strategically organized to meet the current and future needs of its customers, offering Internet and enterprise computing solutions, networking products, commercial PC products and consumer PCs. As the leader in distributed enterprise solutions, Compaq has shipped over a million servers. In 1996, the company reported worldwide sales of $18.1 billion. 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 can be found at http://www.compaq.com or by calling 1-800-OK-COMPAQ. Product information and reseller locations can be obtained by calling 1-800-345-1518.

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(a) All prices mentioned herein are estimated U.S. selling prices; reseller prices may vary.

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

CONTACT: Compaq Computer Corporation

Yvonne Donaldson

281-514-4463

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Miller/Shandwick Technologies

Mike Deshaies

617-536-0470

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