Customers Give Compaq Top Honors in Overall Satisfaction According to Gartner/Datapro's 1998 User Ratings Survey of Midrange Systems.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 1999--

Compaq Computer Corporation's (NYSE:CPQ) leadership in midrange systems was substantiated by earning very favorable responses in the 1998 User Ratings Survey of Midrange Systems issued by Datapro Information Services, a subsidiary of GartnerGroup, Inc(1). Compaq's servers, together with Compaq as the supplier of these servers, received the most favorable ratings in 6 of 8 vendor-related subjects in the survey. The annual report analyzed responses from 468 North American midrange-system customers through anonymous, questionnaire-based surveys in the third quarter of 1998. To view the complete report, please visit: http://www.unix.digital.com/datapro/index.htm.

Compaq highlights in the survey include:

--Customers are extremely satisfied with Compaq's AlphaServer running Tru64 UNIX, making it the outright winner on Overall Satisfaction with System, and Overall Satisfaction with Vendor/Supplier. OpenVMS-based AlphaServers came in third place when customers rated their satisfaction with system and vendor.

--OpenVMS-based AlphaServers finished first in System Reliability, the number one criterion for customers selecting midrange systems, with 84% of users saying their systems offer "excellent" reliability. Open VMS-based AlphaServers also received the most favorable user ratings in Robustness of System Software.

--Compaq's AlphaServer running Tru64 UNIX was rated "the most reliable UNIX system, with 70% of users rating its system reliability as `excellent,'" according to Datapro's report.

--Compaq AlphaServers did exceptionally well on performance, with 90% of UNIX users and 88% of OpenVMS customers giving their systems an "excellent" or "very good" rating.

--Compaq's ProLiant PC server took first place in Combined Costs, an aggregation of answers to four separate questions. The ProLiant received the highest ratings for System Software and Maintenance Costs, and scored second for Software Availability.

Company 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. For more corporate information, see: 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 Note: according to Datapro, these survey results should provide insight into user attitudes, but due to the small sample size, may not be reflective of the overall market for the products surveyed. Gartner/Datapro's 1998 User Ratings Survey of Midrange Systems was published April 16, 1999.