NEW ALPHASERVER SYSTEMS WITH TRU64 UNIX TOP SUN, IBM, AND HP.

Underscoring the strength of Compaq's (NYSE: CPQ) NonStop eBusiness strategy of delivering higher levels of performance to customers on a continuous basis, Compaq, Houston, has announced significant processor enhancements to the high-end Compaq AlphaServer GS60, GS60E, and GS140 systems.

The new Alpha 21264A processor (EV67) running at 700 MHz will deliver as much as 30% to 50% performance improvement, with no recompilation necessary, over current systems. The new processor is available in new AlphaServer GS systems and as field upgrades effective immediately.

"The performance of these enhanced AlphaServers reinforces our commitment to provide customers with significant performance, scalability and reliability advantages in deploying NonStop eBusiness Solutions," said Bill Heil, vice president and general manager, Business Critical Server Division at Compaq.

Latest AlphaServer Leads Industry in Java Performance

In Java performance, the latest AlphaServer GS Series running Tru64 UNIX significantly outperformed all other platforms with, for example, a 53% advantage over HP, 119% faster than Sun, and a full 267% over IBM AIX. In the first two cases, Compaq's Java Compatible(TM) Fast VM clearly demonstrated a significant performance advantage over Sun's new HotSpot(TM) Java compiler running competitive UNIX systems. "Java applications have a key role in creating and deploying portable eBusiness solutions. As a result, we are investing aggressively to achieve the best Java application performance with Tru64 UNIX on AlphaServers as part of Compaq's NonStop(TM) eBusiness initiative," Heil said.

The new 700 MHz AlphaServer GS60E running Tru64(TM) UNIX(R) generated a geometric mean SPECjvm98 result of 75.2, representing the highest result ever reported to SPEC. "Compaq's latest Tru64 UNIX Alpha Java performance results are quite impressive," said Steve Garone, program director for Application Development and Deployment at International Data Corporation. "It's clear that Compaq is committed to helping its customers run Java applications with extremely high performance."

SPECint95 at 39.1 Re-establishes Alpha Leadership

In addition, the release of benchmark results on the newest AlphaServer GS Series re-establishes the Alpha processor as the world's fastest integer and floating point processor. Benchmark results submitted include a SPECint95 of 39.1 and a SPECfp95 of 68.1. Additional benchmarks with Tru64 UNIX include:

AlphaServer GS140 SAP ATO -- 2560 ATO/hr -- Absolute leadership over Sun, HP and IBM and best in class

6-processor AlphaServer GS60E tpmC -- 32,515 tpmC @ $51.95/tpmC 8/11,

8-processor AlphaServer GS140 tpmC -- 42,437 tpmC @ $55.46/tpmC 8/26,

Application Performance Speed-Up for AlphaServer Customers

Another example of the strong results with the enhanced AlphaServer system, Cerner Corporation, a leading healthcare solution partner, achieved impressive results with throughput gains above earlier systems ranging from 43% to 53% with their Health Network Architecture (HNA) Millennium application running OpenVMS with an Oracle database. Jeff Townsend, chief engineering officer at Cerner, said "Compaq's continually improving AlphaServer technology provides leading-edge healthcare institutions with improved response times coupled with the processing power to support future workloads and growth to 20,000 users and more."

AlphaServer GS60E Expands to Support Eight Alpha Processors

The AlphaServer GS60E has also been expanded to support eight Alpha processors, offering customers additional flexibility and scalability in the industry's highest performing server line. The AlphaServer GS60E systems offer superior business and technical application performance with large I/O capacity to handle some of the most demanding eBusiness applications. These systems have next generation power and packaging to provide enhanced availability with redundant, hot swappable power supplies to power CPU, memory, I/O and PCI shelves.

The announcement of the new, higher speed processor and larger on-board cache, now 8MB, to the AlphaServer GS60E and GS140 continues the Compaq roll- out of the fastest performing RISC UNIX servers. As with all AlphaServers, these latest systems support Tru64 UNIX and OpenVMS clustering, which offer ultra-high availability supported by superior manageability, allowing customers to manage multiple systems as easily as one. This is enabled by Compaq's leadership technologies including a cluster-wide file system and single system image, as well as excellent resource utilization using cluster- wide logon.

Prices for the new AlphaServer GS60E start at $85,000 (U.S. List). Prices for the new AlphaServer GS140 start at $384,900 (U.S. List). Both are available in November.

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. Compaq develops and markets hardware, software, solutions, and services, including industry-leading enterprise computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, enterprise and network storage solutions, commercial desktop and portable products and consumer PCs. The company is an industry leader in environmentally friendly programs and business practices.

Compaq products are sold and supported in more than 100 countries through a network of authorized Compaq marketing partners. Customer support and information about Compaq and its products are available at http://www.compaq.com, or by calling 1-800-OK-COMPAQ. Product information and reseller locations are available by calling 1-800-345-1518.