HP SUPPLIES TOKIO MARINE & FIRE WITH AN $11 MILLION DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING SOLUTION; HP Provides Systems Consulting, Design and Integration for Leading Japanese Insurance Company.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 1995-- Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that it is supplying Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Company, Ltd., Tokyo, with an $11 million open, distributed computing solution designed and implemented by HP's Professional Services Organization (PSO). The new system replaces an IBM minicomputer-based on-line transaction processing system.

HP's PSO is managing the project and has created a private frame-relay network infrastructure and developed custom middleware to meet the requirements of Tokio Marine's large-scale on-line system. The new system enhances ease of use and user training, and cuts on-line response time in half, which helps enhance business efficiency and improve individual productivity.

With an annual net income of $13 billion (U.S.), Tokio Marine is the third-largest insurance company in the world ranked by income, and the largest non-life insurance company in the world ranked by assets. The company's existing on-line transaction processing system, based on IBM and Fujitsu hosts and 72 IBM 8100 minicomputers, was installed in 1982. With processing volume of more than 700,000 transactions per day and up to 8,000 concurrent sessions, the system's 10-second inquiry response time had become unacceptable. In addition, the old system ran more than 700 applications, making its on-line menu scheme difficult to learn and use.

After studying Tokio Marine's business and assessing current and future requirements of an information system, PSO consultants recommended replacing the IBM 8100 minicomputers with an open, distributed architecture based on HP 9000 business servers.

Following PSO's recommendation, Tokio replaced the 72 obsolete IBM systems with 60 HP 9000 business servers running the HP Encina/9000 transaction-processing monitor, HP OpenView system- and network-management software, and HP SwitchOver/UX high-availability software. This improved the system's responsiveness and ease of use while preserving data integrity and security -- an important requirement in the insurance industry. With the new system, response time has dropped from 10 seconds to 4.5 seconds.

"The (new) system provides a base for further reinforcement of our corporate structure and enhancement of customer service and protects us from major changes expected to occur in our business environment," said Noboru Araki, vice president of Tokio Marine. "We will use it as our information infrastructure for the next two decades."

The HP 9000/Encina solution ensures distributed transactional data integrity through its coordinating, scheduling, queuing and logging capabilities. HP-developed middleware for the HP 9000 business servers enables communication between the PCs at 440 branch offices and mainframes at two central processing centers.

Broad technical knowledge, including expertise in distributed computing, open systems, UNIX(R) system-based servers and Encina, helped make HP's PSO the ideal candidate for the Tokio Marine project. As prime contractor, HP is responsible for risk management, infrastructure development and third-party-vendor management.

"Our ability to provide total solutions, including a full range of products and services, enabled us to create an open, distributed-computing system for Tokio Marine," said Glenn Osaka, general manager of HP's Professional Services Organization. "The result is a more responsive and flexible distributed architecture that ensures Tokio Marine's competitive advantage now and for the future."

HP has completed more than 3,000 migrations to open, client/server computing as part of its Mainframe Alternative Program. HP believes its success in this program is based on the company's ability to deliver mainframe performance coupled with powerful distributed-computing software; high-quality applications from proven software companies; its strong relationships with key partners; and its worldwide support, consulting and customer-education organization.

HP's worldwide Professional Services Organization is a leading provider of open client/server systems integration, technology consulting and education services to businesses in a variety of industries. The company's professional services consultants help customers apply open-systems technology to meet business challenges in today's fast-changing, competitive environment.

HP 9000 business servers, which are based on HP's industry leading HP-UX(1) operating system and PA-RISC(2) technology, provide the high performance and systems-management capabilities required by data-center environments, as well as the flexibility and performance necessary for client/server implementations.

Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing, communications and measurement products and services recognized for excellence in quality and support. HP has 98,200 employees and had revenue of $25 billion in its 1994 fiscal year. -0- (1) HP-UX 9.X and 10.0 for HP 9000 Series 700 and 800 computers are X/Open(tm) Company UNIX 93 branded products. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Limited. X/Open is a trademark of X/Open Company Limited in the UK and other countries. (2) PA-RISC stands for Precision Architecture, HP's name for its reduced instruction set computing (RISC) technology. RISC is a microprocessor architecture that uses simpler instructions and that therefore can perform computations faster than the traditional complex instruction set computing (CISC) architecture. -0- Windows is a U.S. trademark of Microsoft Corp. -0-

Editorial Note: Reporters may ask questions directly of the customer by sending written inquiries to either Sheri Elpern/HP (415/447-5699/FAX or [e-mail]./Internet) or Susan Baldwin/The Hoffman Agency for HP (408/286-0133/FAX or [e-mail]/Internet).

CONTACT: Hewlett-Packard Company

Sheri Elpern, 408/447-1544