HP Compaq Business Desktop 7000 series offers latest PC technology, increased manageability and security features

DUBAI, July 14, 2004 - HP today announced the expansion of its  business PC lineup as well as a new line of workstations. 

HP's strong portfolio of desktop products has been expanded further with the introduction into the Middle East of the HP Compaq Business Desktop dc7100. This is the first of the 7000 series desktop PCs - offering advanced manageability and security features to business customers. Additional new offerings in the region include the HP Compaq dc5000 and dx6100 models, offering customers a choice between mainstream and advanced levels of business PCs to support varying information technology (IT) needs. 

As far as workstations are concerned HP have announced a new line that redefine personal performance. The HP Workstation xw4200, xw6200 and xw8200 are engineered to offer customers personal workstations with increased power, reliability and support.

Desktops

The HP Compaq Business Desktop dc7100 offers the latest PC technology and one of the longest lifecycles for business PCs. Maintaining consistent hardware and software images for at least 15 months, the dc7100 offers IT managers easy deployment and management and fewer software drivers and images to qualify and maintain. This allows business customers and IT managers to focus on business-critical items instead of task-related PC management.

"The HP Compaq Business Desktop dc7100 offers industry-standard technology with advanced manageability and security tools to help reduce ownership costs, increase productivity and simplify PC ownership," said Sameh El-Deeb, Desktop Manager HP Middle East. "The dc7100 provides business customers with a solution that solves real business challenges associated with the total cost of IT ownership, security risks and managing change."

Based on the new Intel 915G chipset, the dc7100 also offers customers advanced manageability features with HP Lifecycle Solutions, including the new Altiris Local Recovery solution for PC back-up, restoration and recovery.

The local recovery solution helps protect users' data and the system image in a hidden, protected partition on the PC's hard drive, enabling users to recover their own data and system settings, helping to reduce the risk of data loss and the number of calls to the help desk for system recovery operations.

The dc7100 offers advanced security features with the HP ProtectTools Embedded Security Manager, a combined hardware and software solution for users, with an easy-to-use, single interface for security operations such as authentication, data encryption, and secured communications. The use of open standards by HP ProtectTools allows for seamless integration of third-party security solutions.

The HP Compaq Business Desktop dc7100 is available in three designs - ultra-slim desktop, small form factor and convertible minitower - giving customers a choice of features based on their business needs and budgets. Customers can choose convenient pre-configured models or fully customize their own solution with Intel Pentium 4 HyperThread-enabled(1,2) processors (with speeds up to 3.6 gigahertz), the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, up to 160-gigabyte hard drives, up to four gigabytes of DDR SDRAM, and a choice of optical drives.

All three designs feature tool-less access to internal components and drives for quick and easy upgrades or service. The simplified tool-less access allows IT managers or users to open up the chassis and remove all internal components and drives in as quickly as 60 seconds.

The HP Compaq Business Desktop dc7100 starts at an estimated street price of $700 and is planned to be available by the end of August.  The dx 6100 will start from $700 and will also be available from the end of August.  

Workstations

The HP Workstation xw4200, xw6200 and xw8200 have a convenient tool-less chassis design, utilize the latest processor technology from Intel as well as best-in-class PCI Express graphics. They provide the power essential to meeting the technologically demanding environments of industries such as mechanical computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering (MCAD/CAE), digital content creation (DCC), financial services and geographic information systems (GIS).

"HP is committed to offering customers technologies that deliver the best price/performance combination available," said Junaid Rahman, Workstation and Thinkline Manager, HP Middle East. "The new personal workstation line is designed to integrate and enhance today's industry-standard technologies and management solutions to provide customers a platform that is simple to use and maintain, and easily adapts to changing information technology needs."

Advanced computing for today and tomorrow

The dual-processor HP Workstation xw6200 and xw8200 offer customers standards-based 64-bit computing by using the new Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T). Both also use the new Intel E7525 chipset and next-generation Intel Xeon processors. This new technology represents a natural evolution of the x86 architecture and allows customers to leverage the broadest set of industry-standard solutions by being able to run current 32-bit and 64-bit applications on the same Xeon-based workstation.

Intel's EM64T expands addressable memory space up to 256 terabytes (TB), aiding in the design and manipulation of large data sets or models. Customers will now be able to run 32-bit applications at full performance on Xeon-based HP Workstations and also support 64-bit operating systems and applications. HP's 10-plus years of experience designing and integrating 64- and 32-bit technology solutions provides investment protection and greater agility today, while allowing customers to transition to 64-bit computing in the future.

The HP Workstation xw4200, based on an Intel 925X Express Chipset and Intel Pentium 4 processor with Intel EM64T, will also have Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology Support when available from Intel.

Dual-processing power with the latest technology

The midrange, dual-processor HP Workstation xw6200 is a scalable, expandable workstation in the smallest package in the industry. Designed for the demanding numerical applications of space-constrained financial analysts, traders, engineers and scientists, the HP xw6200 can easily analyze massive amounts of real-time data and execute fast transactions while providing the capability of viewing up to eight monitors simultaneously.

By adding up to 16 gigabytes (GB) of RAM (when two GB DIMMS are available) and 1.5 TB of internal storage, the high-performance, dual-processing HP Workstation xw8200 can scale to take on the toughest jobs - whether they challenge the memory subsystem, the processor, the graphics cards, system storage or a combination of components. The HP Workstation xw8200 delivers top-of-the-line dual-processing performance, large computational and visualization capacity and expandability with HP's renowned reliability.

The newest HP Workstations provide an x16 PCI-Express graphics port providing up to four times the bandwidth available with today's AGP 8x graphics connection. This enables customers to use the highest performing graphics technology available today, providing excellent visualization capability. Both dual-processor workstations offer a 50 percent faster system bus and DDR-2 400 ECC registered memory for greater performance and lower power requirements, along with an added level of data integrity and system uptime.

The HP Workstation xw6200 and xw8200 support higher performance processors with double the amount of L2 cache as previous generation Xeon processors. This provides customers with immediate performance gains by increasing the complexity of their models and designs to provide the next level of visual and computational realism.

Evolutionary entry-level, high-performance workstation

The entry-level, high-performance HP Workstation xw4200 combines industry-leading Intel technologies and enhanced graphics with HP's reliability, support and 20-plus years of workstation technical and graphical expertise. The HP Workstation xw4200 is ideal for engineers, artists, designers, scientists and other high-performance users that have intense application demands, require large, complex models or data sets and have multi-tasking requirements or extensive graphic needs.

The HP Workstation xw4200 features Intel's new high-performance 925X Express chipset and the latest Pentium 4 processors with Hyper-Threading technology(1) at speeds up to 3.6 gigahertz with an 800-megahertz front side bus. The new chipset paves the way to performance advances, such as the new PCI-Express graphics and input/output interface, DDR-2 memory architecture, integrated Serial ATA RAID controller, and, when available, support for future EM64T processors from Intel.

A broad range of new 2D and 3D PCI-Express graphics solutions will be available to provide excellent 3D application performance and expansive 2D screen real estate. Using next-generation DDR-2 memory technology running at 533 MHz, the HP Workstation xw4200 touts 33 percent greater memory bandwidth than HP's previous entry workstation. The integrated four-channel Serial ATA RAID controller enables high-reliability redundant (mirrored) hard drive arrays or high-performance striped hard arrays.

Pricing and availability

Offered directly from HP and through its broad network of distribution partners, the new HP Workstation xw4200, xw6200 and xw8200 support Windows XP Professional as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3.0 operating systems. The xw6200 and xw8200 are available now and start at estimated street prices of $1999 and $2299, respectively. The HP xw4200 is expected to be available from July 29 $1499

-Ends-

About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended April 30, 2004, HP revenue totaled $76.8 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

(1) Hyper-Threading Technology requires a computer system with an Intel Pentium 4 processor supporting HT Technology and a Hyper-Threading Technology enabled chipset, BIOS and operating system. Performance will vary depending on the specific hardware and software used. See www.intel.com/info/hyperthreading/ for more information including details on which processors support HT Technology.

(2)  Intel's numbering is not a measurement of higher performance.

(3) Actual prices may vary.

Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corp. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

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 the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended Jan. 31, 2004, and other Securities and Exchange Commission reports, filed after the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2003. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

© Press Release 2004