HP captures number one position in Western European server market in 2002.

HP (NYSE:HPQ) has announced that it has captured the number one position in the Western European server market for 2002, according to the latest IDC server report, with revenue market share of 32.1 per cent. Sales from HP and Compaq combined for 2002 show a clear leadership position in the region's server market. HP is the number one IT vendor in the strategic market segments of RISC-based servers as well as 32-bit servers running Windows, Linux or UNIX. These results strengthen HP's position as the largest IT company in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), ahead of major competitors like IBM, Sun and Dell.

"Our success in both business critical systems and industry standard servers has boosted HP's overall strength and leadership in the EMEA market," said Kasper Rorsted, Managing Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Senior Vice President, Enterprise Systems Group, HP. "HP's commitment to helping businesses achieve greater business agility and the best return on IT investment clearly resonates with the needs of our customers, as reflected in the market numbers."

According to figures from industry research firm IDC, HP leads the industry in 32-bit servers in EMEA in every measured country, capturing more than 45 per cent revenue market share. HP's position is highlighted by a continued lead in the eight-way Intel processor-based server market in EMEA with more than 52 per cent revenue market share in 2002. HP also achieved 42.4 per cent Windows server market share and 45.2 per cent Linux server market share, with more customers deploying Linux on HP ProLiant servers than on any other server in the world, continuing the leadership position that the ProLiant server has held for more than three years.

Also according to IDC, HP maintains revenue market shares of 34.4 per cent in UNIX primarily with its HP UX line, 41 per cent in 64-bit servers and 32.8 per cent in RISC-based servers in Western Europe. Based on multi-operating systems and open architectures, HP's Business Critical Systems group continues to innovate IT infrastructure solutions for best customer needs. HP's business critical systems keep enterprises running and enable customers to build the adaptive data centre of the future and achieve maximum business agility.

HP's strong market position across its server portfolio is the result of delivering on a consistent server strategy, and its focused investment in technology innovations. The following factors contribute to HP's market momentum in business critical systems and industry standard servers:

--Record shipments with high-end HP Superdome servers and continued lead in the competitive midrange segment.

--Strong demand for Itanium 2-based systems and solutions; driving industry standards-based 64-bit computing to provide best return on IT investment.

--The recent launch of the next-generation AlphaServer, which delivers twice the performance of existing models and provides a smooth, secure and cost-effective transition path to future HP Itanium-based servers.

--HP's industry-leading single-system high availability technologies, which include clusters of HP NonStop servers to provide the availability customers require, and the flexibility to meet changing business needs

--HP's dynamic resource optimisation capabilities, including its partitioning continuum, on-demand portfolio, Utility Data Centre and Zero Latency Enterprise Solutions.

--The ProLiant BL p-Class server line, including two-processor blades and the industry's first four-processor blades from a major vendor.

--The recent launch of the next-generation 8-way ProLiant platforms delivering industry-leading TPC-C benchmarks to meet customers' scale-up and consolidation needs.

--Advanced Memory Protection technologies--a suite of memory protection architectures that ensure reliability, serviceability, and scalability of HP ProLiant servers.

--ProLiant Essentials Software--the tools customers need to deploy and manage an adaptive infrastructure based on industry standard ProLiant servers.

Building on this momentum, HP is well positioned to maintain its leadership in EMEA in 2003 and beyond, with continued investment in innovative new server technologies for Itanium, HP UX and Linux as well as adopting Microsoft Windows 2003 Server for the enterprise.