Better than any other IT vendor, Hewlett-Packard is equipped to help customers implement multi-OS platform solutions. While continuing to lead the worldwide UNIX systems market with HP-UX- based workstations and servers, HP also leads in the development and deployment of NT solutions. The HP-Microsoft Alliance, announced in March of 1997, further strengthened HP's position as the number one vendor of heterogeneous IT solutions.

HP World serves one of the most important and fastest growing segments of the information technology (IT) market: the $95 billion Hewlett-Packard (HP) customer market for system, network, peripheral, software, and Inter/intranet products and services in the United States. Corporate IT spending continues to increase in the U.S. and so does HP's share of the market. In fact, HP is already the world's leading supplier of open enterprise computing and intends to become the number one computer supplier overall.

While HP products are consistently rated high for their quality, HP is the number two company in the IT market, behind IBM. However, research reveals that HP customers and HP World readers are more deeply involved in open computing, in purchasing products in addition to HP products and are better positioned for the future of computing than any other group.

Business Week estimates the worldwide IT market to be well over $700 billion, with just under half (47%) in the United States. According to Dataquest, the two largest segments in the market are IT services (38%) and computers (29%), with U.S. computer sales just shy of $100 billion. PCs represent about $55 billion of the market and the remainder is midrange servers, workstations and mainframes.

HP has traditionally maintained a strong position in the IT market. It is estimated to have a 29% share of the IT market, making HP's customers responsible for nearly $95 billion of IT products and services in the U.S. HP puts its sales at just over $15 billion on HP enterprise products alone!

HP computing professionals-the HP World readers-are far more active than their counterparts in working with multiple platforms. HP World readers are 22% to 40% more likely than their non-HP user colleagues to be involved in purchasing other products in addition to HP products. HP truly has a basis for claiming leadership in the world of open system and multi-platform computing.

This position offers HP great opportunities for the future. HP stands out as the one company best positioned to be successful in environments involving both UNIX and NT. Many analysts see UNIX and NT being deployed together in enterprise computing, and HP is the only company that can easily offer these platforms the ability to work together.

HP is the company best prepared for 64-bit architecture and has the best scalability options for its 32-bit systems. Companies such as IBM and Sun are particularly vulnerable in their approaches to 64-bit architectures. IBM has decided to support NT, a 32-bit operating system, and Sun will not run UNIX on Merced. Through a combination of scaling up current customers and being in the right place at the right time with IA-64, HP intends to emerge as the leader in enterprise computing.

HP's superb reputation for service and support positions the company to keep current customers and become the preferred vendor in new companies. Combined with a solid strategy of introducing HP products at the entry level (PC servers and workstations) to medium-sized companies (cited as the fastest growing segment of the business computing market), HP has created a pipeline of new customers.

HP is positioned to challenge IBM as the market leader in the changing IT world.