HP Fuels Industry-standard Approach to Web Services Management.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 2003

HP to Submit Technology to Standards Consortium, Supported by

Ascential Software, BEA Systems, Informatica, IONA, Oracle,

Sun Microsystems, TIBCO Software, and webMethods

Working with partners to help overcome barriers to full-scale Web services adoption, HP (NYSE:HPQ) today announced its plans to submit its Web Services Management Framework for industry review to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), a global consortium driving the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards.

With support from industry leaders such as Ascential Software, BEA Systems, Informatica, IONA, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO Software, Inc., and webMethods, among others, HP will make the framework specification available for public download and is delivering a call to action for other Web services-reliant companies to join the effort to create an industry standards-based solution for the management of, and through, Web services.

Enterprises demanding reduced information technology (IT) complexity and increased agility need to control access, track and measure service levels, collect usage data and, most importantly, ensure return on their IT investments. This can be achieved through an intelligently managed adaptive infrastructure that incorporates "built-in" Web services management within the design and deployment of their IT infrastructures. Developed by HP, with significant input from key partners, the Web Services Management Framework is a logical architecture for the management of resources, including Web services themselves, through Web services.

"HP is leading the development of open standards for Web services management by working with its partners to establish a management interface that is domain, platform and vendor neutral," said Mark Linesch, vice president, HP Adaptive Enterprise Program. "We're submitting this specification to OASIS to accelerate the adoption of common standards in Web services management and to simplify Web services development for our partners and customers today, while enabling them to plug into the adaptive enterprise of tomorrow."

The framework defines how all IT resources in an adaptive enterprise can expose management information about themselves and how they can be managed. A management interface communicates immediate knowledge about changes in business processes and IT infrastructure whenever application and infrastructure events occur, and it gives companies the choice and flexibility to adopt future innovations and advance the management of their adaptive enterprise.

The framework also embraces standardization -- one of the four design principles in HP's Darwin Reference Architecture -- to provide customers and partners with a step-by-step approach to creating a business process-oriented IT environment that dynamically adjusts to business changes. The Darwin Reference architecture creates a tighter linkage between critical business processes and the supporting IT infrastructure and helps provide built-in manageability.

Model and platform neutral, the Web Services Management Framework is designed to be applied to many different domains with varying management requirements and allows for management of J2EE, .NET and other platforms. This allows it to better support important IT domains such as enterprise application integration, enterprise resource planning, software configuration management and Web services.

"HP is taking a leadership position in driving standards for Web services management," said Audrey Rasmussen, vice president, Enterprise Management Associates. "By offering a non-proprietary solution jointly developed with industry partners, HP will help speed the adoption of an open specification for the end-to-end management of Web services and, at the same time, help eliminate a key barrier to the development and deployment of Web services."

HP is working with leading standards consortia and partners to meet the emerging needs of IT administrators to monitor and actively manage Web services. The company is an active participant in OASIS, W3C, Liberty Alliance, Global Grid Forum and Web Service-Interoperability Organization. Industry leaders including Ascential Software, BEA Systems, Informatica, IONA, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, TIBCO, and webMethods support the Web Services Management Framework.

"Innovative companies that pursue Web services in conjunction with their enterprise integration initiatives will have a much more open and flexible platform that delivers better long-term value. The Ascential(TM) Enterprise Integration Suite delivers the benefits of service-oriented architecture to our customers. We applaud HP's efforts and support its submission of the Web Services Management Framework for industry review to OASIS," said Bob Zurek, vice president, Advanced Technology, Ascential Software Corporation, the enterprise data integration leader.

"BEA recognizes the importance of standards to enable adaptive management in heterogeneous environments, and we will build implementations together with HP that take advantage of these standards in order to simplify the real-time adaptive management of our customers' entire application infrastructures," said Scott Dietzen, chief technology officer, BEA Systems, Inc.

"Informatica recognizes that a Web services based solution for exposing management information, developed jointly with industry partners, is essential not only to monitor and manage key business operations, but to enable the adaptive enterprise. We are pleased to support HP's submission of the Web Services Management Framework for industry review to the OASIS WSDM technical committee," said James Markarian, vice president of product strategy, Informatica Corporation, a leading provider of data integration and business intelligence software.

"Since its inception, IONA's mission has been to provide software solutions that enable customers to build an adaptive and collaborative IT infrastructure. We are pleased to be working with HP on WSMF to formalize a non-proprietary, open solution for the end-to-end management of Web services. Web services management standardization is an important step toward helping customers reduce IT complexity and increase return on IT investments," said Eric Newcomer, chief technology officer, IONA(R), a leading provider of High Performance Integration(TM) software solutions for mission-critical systems.

"Oracle is pleased to work with HP in support of their Web Services Management Framework -- WSMF. The submission of WSMF to OASIS is an important step toward an open standards-based approach for Web Services management that is critical to Oracle and HP customers," said Donald Deutsch, vice president of standards strategy and architecture, Oracle Corporation.

"Sun believes that the widespread adoption of Web services management depends on the development of high-quality standards, and Sun is committed to participating in the development of these standards as well as products. Sun has long supported the timely development of restriction-free specifications at industry-recognized organizations like OASIS, W3C and Liberty and we support the submission of WSMF to OASIS," said John Fowler, chief technology officer, software, Sun Microsystems, Inc., a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services.

"We are working closely with HP to develop standards-based solutions around HP's Web Services Management specifications that will help companies to dynamically adapt their business in response to changes in their internal and external environments. Together, TIBCO and HP will deliver a powerful Web services-based solution that will enable customers to gain immediate insight into the information flow between business processes across the enterprise, as well as external events that affect them, allowing them to optimize their business for greater competitive advantage," said Tommy Joseph, chief technology officer, TIBCO Software, Inc., a leading enabler of real-time business and a leading independent business integration software company.

"webMethods and HP are building upon their strong history of standards collaboration to help define the Web services management standards within the OASIS WSDM technical committee. The resulting standards will serve as the foundation for our mutual customers' realization of a true adaptive enterprise," said Yale Tankus, vice president of business development, webMethods, Inc., a leading independent provider of integration software.

Leveraging its HP OpenView management software portfolio, HP has introduced for beta customers technologies that use HP's Web Services Management Framework for the adaptive enterprise, including the HP OpenView Web Services Management Engine and new Application Impact Analysis and Business Impact Analysis technologies.

The Web Services Management Framework 2.0 specification is available for download, at no cost, at http://devresource.hp.com/wsmf. The specification will be contributed to the OASIS WSDM technical committee during the next face-to-face meeting, scheduled for July 28.

More information on HP management software and solutions is available at www.openview.hp.com.

About HP

HP delivers vital technology for business and life. The company's solutions span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing for consumers, enterprises and small and medium business. For the last four quarters, HP revenue totaled $70.4 billion. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause the results of HP and its consolidated subsidiaries to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any projections of earnings, revenues, or other financial items; any statements of the plans, strategies, and objectives of management for future operations; any statements concerning proposed new services or developments; any statements regarding future economic conditions or performance; statements of belief and any statement of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. The risks, uncertainties and assumptions referred to above include employee management issues; the timely development, production and acceptance of services and their feature sets; the challenge of managing asset levels, including inventory; the difficulty of keeping expense growth at modest levels while increasing revenues; and other risks that are described from time to time in HP's Securities and Exchange Commission reports, including but not limited to HP's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended April 30, 2003, and subsequently filed reports. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes or any of these assumptions proves incorrect, HP's results could differ materially from HP's expectations in these statements. HP assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.