DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 21st November 2006 - HP Middle East today announced a new deal with Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) to exclusively provide the company with full HP products and services for the next five years.

The new deal allows PDO, the largest oil and gas exploration and production company in Oman, to benefit from up to date end to end proven technology solutions that support their business and customer needs. The agreement will include solutions from the Personal Systems Group, Technology Solutions Group as well as the Imaging and Printing Group offering PDO with a wide portfolio of products and services.

With business focus placed on security, mobility and disaster recovery, HP will provide PDO with high performance, reliable notebooks and iPAQ pocket PCs. These will allow users the ability to work remotely wherever and whenever they are seamlessly.

HP solves one of PDO's major technology challenges by offering high end workstations that allow a fully integrated Linux operating system, achieving the ultimate workstation performance in their environment. With full-featured, robust capabilities, HP provides PDO with reliable breakthrough solutions with a long life cycle and a sound return on investment.

To ensure business continuity and back up of data, HP's Enterprise Management System comes equipped with HP Openview Service Desk and is integrated with IPCC to help reduce operational costs, increase staff efficiencies, improve application availability and optimize service delivery. To handle the most demanding IT environments, HP has provided BladeSystem servers and multi-function printers achieving total cost ownership (TCO) and a level of standardization throughout the company, with full support and maintenance.

In order to achieve tangible time saving and cost effective printing, HP also provides a wide portfolio of imaging and printing products, ranging from mono and colour laser printers to high-end multi function printers. In addition to this, the sophisticated Web-based management software, HP Web Jetadmin 8.1 allows PDO to remotely install, configure, and manage a wide variety of network peripherals using a standard Web browser.   

Anil Gandhi, General Manager, PSG, HP Middle East, said "This new deal signifies our strong partnership and commitment to PDO and how we, at HP, strive to provide our customers with tailored solutions to ensure they can run their business as cost effective and productive as possible.

"HP has been working with PDO for nearly 25 years and through our new partnership, are committed to making sure the PDO IT department is up to date with the latest technology available and ensure they get the right training to maximize the benefits from our solutions."

Ibtisam al Riyami, IT Manager at PDO, said: "We believe that HP delivers the high-performance technology we require to increase performance whilst managing costs."

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About PDO
Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) is the major exploration and production company in the Sultanate. It accounts for about 90% of the country's crude-oil production and nearly all of its natural-gas supply. The Company is owned by the Government of Oman (60% interest), the Shell Group (34% interest), Total (4% interest) and Partex (2% interest).

For further information, please visit: www.pdo.co.om

About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended Oct. 31, 2006, HP revenue totaled $91.7 billion. More information about HP (NYSE, Nasdaq: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

About HP Middle East
HP is the largest technology and solutions provider in the Middle East with 670 employees and subsidiaries in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Jeddah, Khobar, Cairo,  Ramallah and Oman servicing the GCC, Egypt and the Levant. HP has been present in the Middle East since 1968 and opened its first regional office in 1994. HP Middle East is the market leader for enterprise, small and medium business and consumer technology products and offers a large portfolio of solutions and services in various business domains.

More information about HP in the Middle East is available at www.hp.com/me

2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

© Press Release 2006