HP and Oracle Announce Strategic E-services Alliance; HP E-speak, Oracle8i and Oracle Internet Platform Products Will Combine to Create Leading E-Services Technology.

PALO ALTO and REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 18, 1999--

Hewlett-Packard Company (HWP) and Oracle Corp. (ORCL), the leading choice for e-business, today announced a comprehensive alliance to jointly create leading technology for developing and deploying e-services.

This e-services technology will include HP's e-speak, a universal language of dynamic brokering for e-services, seamlessly integrated with Oracle8i(TM), and a variety of Oracle's Internet Platform Products. E-services technologies will be made available to Internet application developers and HP's e-speak development community through the Oracle Technology Network, Oracle's extensive worldwide developer network and through HP's developer portal.

The companies intend to establish labs at HP in Cupertino, Calif., and at Oracle in Redwood Shores, Calif., for HP and Oracle engineers to develop these e-services technologies. Additionally, as part of a joint sales and marketing effort to promote e-services, HP and Oracle intend to form "expert centers" worldwide to assist a wide range of customers, including ISPs, ASPs and dot-com companies, in developing e-speak-enabled e-services deployed on Oracle8i.

E-services technology will serve as a crucial building block in the creation of Internet-based services, including such business-to-business services as application-hosting, Web-based procurement and enterprise resource planning, and such consumer services as integrated travel and healthcare, and e-commerce businesses.

"HP and Oracle today are teaming to build a strong foundation for the e-services marketplace," said Ann Livermore, president and chief executive officer of HP Enterprise Computing. "Our combined products will help enable Internet Chapter 2, where the Web will work for you rather than you having to work the Web."

"As the leader in providing e-business solutions, Oracle sees e-services as an important step in the development of e-commerce and e-business solutions," said Ray Lane, president and chief operating officer, Oracle Corp. "Oracle and HP have always been innovators in the industry, so it is only natural that we combine our cutting-edge technologies to offer an integrated technology platform for e-services."

About e-speak

E-speak is an open-services software environment for developing and operating universal Internet-based services. HP's e-speak will allow spontaneous, ad hoc and secure interactions across firewalls. This open-standards environment will allow e-services to discover, collaborate and broker with other e-services, thus enabling the delivery complex Internet-based e-services. The HP e-speak platform includes run-time of any kind (computing device, application or data content) regardless of hardware or operating-system environment.

About e-services

An e-service is any asset that companies or individuals make available via the Net to drive new revenue streams or create new efficiencies. E-services work behind the scenes to combine and recombine to solve problems and complete transactions. The HP and Oracle integrated platform for e-services will enable customers to gain fast access to the burgeoning Internet commerce market -- projected by IDG to reach $2.7 trillion in the next five years -- through enhanced service offerings, lower operational costs and increased profits.

About Oracle Internet Platform

The Oracle Internet Platform delivers a complete infrastructure for developing, deploying and managing e-business applications. The Oracle Internet Platform is centered around Oracle8i, the world's first Internet database, which comes with Oracle JServer, the only scalable server-side Java engine, built right in. In addition, the Oracle Internet Platform provides Oracle Internet Directory & Security services, as well as a broad range of Development and System Management tools.

Availability

HP E-Services and the Oracle Internet Platform are available on all leading UNIX(R) operating systems, including HP/UX(1) and Microsoft Windows NT(R) and Windows(R) 2000, as well as the Oracle8i Appliance.

About Oracle

Oracle Corporation is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. With annual revenues of more than $8.8 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services, in more than 145 countries around the world.

For more information about Oracle, please call 650/506-7000. Oracle's World Wide Web address is (URL) http://www.oracle.com/.

About HP

The Hewlett-Packard Company, a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home, is focused on capitalizing on the opportunities of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic services.

HP had computer-related revenue of $39.5 billion in its 1998 fiscal year. HP plans to launch a new company consisting of its industry-leading test--and-measurement, semiconductor products, chemical-analysis and medical businesses. These businesses represented $7.6 billion of HP's total revenue in fiscal 1998. With leading positions in multiple market segments, this technology-based company will focus on opportunities such as communications and life sciences.

HP has 123,000 employees worldwide and had total revenue of $47.1 billion in its 1998 fiscal year. Information about HP, its products and the company's Year 2000 program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California.

Microsoft is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Windows is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. -0-

(1)  HP-UX Release 10.20 and later and HP-UX Release 11.00 and later
     (in both 32- and 64-bit configurations) on all HP 9000 computers
     are Open Group UNIX 95 branded products.

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UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.