System Access Sets Performance Benchmark on HP Superdome Server for Global Banking Industry; Achieves Industry-leading High-throughput Transaction Processing Results.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 4, 2003

HP (NYSE:HPQ) and System Access today announced industry-leading performance results for transaction processing of bank operations. Overall, the benchmark results are four times faster than the previous benchmarks of the same product suite in other high-end operating environments.

Key benchmark results include:

-- The Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) runs yielded a result

of processing up to 3,800 business transactions per second.

-- Twenty-six million business transactions (both consumer

lending and retail deposit accounts) were processed by System

Access' SYMBOLS EOC product in two hours.

-- The system required an average of only 11.39 microseconds to

respond to each request.

-- More than 48 million records were processed in end-of-day

batch runs that lasted only one hour 18 minutes.

-- Interest accrual for 25,000 accounts was processed per second

at the peak of the runs.

"HP and System Access have proven industry-leading performance capabilities for harnessing vital business advantages in the global banking industry," said Owen Kemp, vice president, global finance industry, HP Enterprise Systems Group. "Our customers will realize improved operational efficiency and productivity, reduction of management and operational costs, and enhanced customer experience."

The demonstrated performance capabilities of the System Access application on the HP Superdome platform can drastically and positively affect the long-term plan of a bank. With highly scalable solutions that are able to process massive transactions swiftly, a bank could reduce significantly the time associated with completing the operations. Customer satisfaction improves due to quicker transaction resolution. High-performance solutions enable a bank to apply fiscal discipline on new technological purchases and limit system upgrades.

"System Access has consistently delivered high-performance results with SYMBOLS. The HP benchmark is further proof that we are right on track for delivering industry-leading banking solutions," said Olivier Trancart, chief executive officer, System Access. "It also means that our solutions are capable of delivering value to our customers on many fronts, including cost-considerations, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction."

About the Benchmark

The benchmark activity was conducted over a five-week period and audited by TUV Informationstechnic GmbH (TUViT) Essen. The testing took place in the HP Capacity Performance Center in Atlanta.

The purpose of the benchmark was to validate and prove the scalability and performance of the SYMBOLS EOC (Enterprise Operation Center) product suite on the HP Superdome platform. The solution was implemented on an HP Superdome SD6400 server with a CPU configuration of 64-way 256-gigabytes RAM. The platform runs on HP-UX 11.11 system software and incorporated an Oracle(R) 9i database.

The SYMBOLS EOC is a core banking solution that handles all the back-end, primary operations of a bank. Its functions include the processing of services such as deposits, lending, domestic and international payment, letter of credits, foreign exchange, money market, bonds, equity trading and custodial services.

Specifically, the benchmark was conducted to determine SYMBOLS EOC's ability in meeting the following objectives:

-- High scalability to meet the massive transaction throughputs

of banks;

-- Technology for handling large customer base installation,

complex transaction-mix and effecting quick transaction

turnaround; and

-- Consistent performance for all levels of transaction volume.

The benchmark assessed the SYMBOLS and Superdome platform on two categories of operations -- online transaction processing and batch operations.

The OLTP simulation tested the real-time transaction capabilities of SYMBOLS EOC in real-world situations. It measures the number of real-time transactions SYMBOLS is able to handle per second and the average length of time the solution takes to process a transaction request. Batch operations, on the other hand, tested the solution's ability to handle aggregated operations at one go. It measures the speed and efficiency with which SYMBOLS is able to process a large-volume batch.

Business scenarios were simulated to closely resemble the real-world conditions of high-throughput banking environment. These included the following:

-- A customer base of 50 million clients;

-- A total of 110 million accounts, with 80 million being retail

deposit accounts and 30 million being consumer lending

accounts; and

-- A mixture of 10 different types of business transactions.

The high-end UNIX(R) HP Superdome server offers customers leading flexibility, scalability, availability, performance and manageability to support their key IT efforts including consolidation, mainframe re-hosting, key business applications (ERP, billing, financial, HR, etc.), data warehousing or technical computing. HP Superdome customers also benefit from fast on-line transaction processing, short batch-processing windows, rich data warehousing, high-volume e-commerce/Web transactions and continual performance enhancements and investment protection.

About System Access

Established in 1983, System Access is a leading financial software provider of customer-centric universal banking solutions for financial service institutions worldwide. Headquartered in Singapore, System Access has regional offices in Geneva, London, Bratislava, Prague, Dubai, Manila and Bangkok serving the needs of customers in over 20 countries across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. For more information, visit http://www.systemaccess.com.

About HP

HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. HP completed its acquisition of Compaq Computer Corporation on May 3, 2002. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

Note to Editors: Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corp., Redwood City, Calif. Unix is a registered trademark of the Open Group.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the possibility that the market for the sale of certain products and services may not develop as expected; that development and performance of these products and services may not proceed as planned; 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 annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended October 31, 2002, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 21, 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.