May 27, 2004 -- Heidelberg and HP Services signed a contract to outsource part of the Heidelberg IT infrastructure. Over a period of five years those services are valued at around 30 Mio. Euros. As of June 2004 HPS will be operating worldwide the SAP Infrastructure for about 7,000 Heidelberg end users. Some related Heidelberg employees will be taken over by HP. The SAP systems of the three data centers which Heidelberg run will be centralized in HPs data center in Boeblingen. In order to make SAP infrastructure more effective HP will also consolidate and optimize the SAP hardware platform and processes. This will result in significant cost reductions over the next five years. "Our main IT strategy is the global consolidation and standardization of IT systems/services cost effectively. Cooperation with HP has proved to be successful. This latest agreement with HP in the IT sector will improve SAP IT services, globalize and standardize, and at the same time reduce costs up to 30 percent," Dr. Herbert Meyer, CFO of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG. As a long term technology and service provider for Heidelberg, HP welcomes the opportunity of expanding services with the now completed worldwide valid contract. Heidelberg will have calculable high quality HP services. At the same time the contract will strengthen the cooperation of both companies and promote future opportunities," Wolfram J. Fischer, General Manager Technology Solutions Group.