            HP STATEMENT RE:  NOVELL/USL MERGER
 
 
We believe the merger has several positive ramifications:
 
Since AT&T will no longer own USL, this eliminates some of the old
prejudices that led to the creation of OSF and USL in the late '80's.
Novell's merger with USL should further enhance the cooperation we have
seen recently between OSF and USL.  The acceptance of UNIX and
increasing competitive pressure will encourage Novell
to promote further cooperation for integration and unification of
UNIX in the future.  Key technology areas for further cooperation
include interfaces and middleware such as DCE and DME.
 
Novell recognizes the importance of UNIX in commercial environments
and has a strong and healthy relationship with HP, the commercial UNIX
leader.  HP's commercial UNIX strategy pulled together NetWare and UNIX two
years ago with the emergence of NetWare for UNIX and PC integration
product strategies.  Novell's merger with USL is consistent with HP's
view of UNIX.  HP will continue it's strong relationship with Novell
as evidenced by its joint development of Native Netware on HP's PA-RISC
technology.  HP views the USL merger as another possible area of
opportunity for the two companies.
 
Building upon the strong PC integration solutions provided today by
HP-UX, this announcement will further accelerate the development of
UNIX as an integration platform for PC LANS into an enterprise
computing environment.
 
It allows for further integration of all the benefits of scalability,
security, manageability and reliability that HP-UX provides today,
as well as support for the multitude of commercial UNIX applications
applications desired by today's customers, with the benefits of
of strong NetWare integration.
 
In summary, the Novell/USL merger reinforces HP's direction of establishing
HP-UX as an integration platform for PC LANS into enterprise computing
environments, and will lead to further integration of
UNIX solutions in the future. 