HOUSTON, TX -- Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) is projected to finish 2001 as the number one disk storage vendor in Western Europe, achieving top rankings in all key categories, including a move into first place in external storage revenue, according to the latest analysis of the worldwide storage market by the industry analyst firm IDC. The analysis assesses the performance of the leading storage vendors in terms of revenue, terabytes sold and units shipped. "The modular Compaq StorageWorks design offers better price and performance compared to a monolithic architecture as it has been developed from the ground up for open systems environments," said Olaf Swantee, director EMEA, Compaq Enterprise Storage. "Our leading market position provides two proof points: the growing acceptance of our Compaq StorageWorks architecture and the assurance to customers that their investments in mission-critical storage mean low risk as they work with a vendor that installs half of all SANs in Europe." These achievements reportedly prove that consumers want IT solutions that present the best long-term return on their IT investments. Compaq StorageWorks is winning the confidence of customers worldwide, surpassing all competitors in terms of revenue, terabytes sold and units shipped. Disk Storage Systems Market Forecast, 2001 Server-based Internal & External Disk Storage #1 in revenue and market share #1 in TB shipped #1 in units shipped Open Systems Disk Storage #1 in revenue and market share #1 in TB shipped #1 in units shipped External Storage #1 in TB shipped #1 in units shipped "Compaq is estimated to be the leader of the 2001 disk storage systems market, based upon IDC's recently released preliminary assessment of the 2001 disk storage systems market," stated Claus Egge, program director at IDC. "This report forecasts that Compaq will ship more than 320,000 disk storage systems in Western Europe in 2001 or 47% of all disk storage system units. Further, IDC forecasts that Compaq will supply 29% of the total storage system capacity estimated at $1.59 billion in 2001, IDC also predicts that Compaq will be the number one vendor in European disk storage systems revenue". For more information visit www.compaq.com/storage