PALO ALTO, Calif., and FAIRFAX, Va., May 1, 2001 - Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP) and webMethods, Inc. (Nasdaq:WEBM) today announced a strategic alliance to co-develop software that improves the quality of customers' Internet business interactions. The HP OpenView software business unit will collaborate with webMethods to create software to help companies efficiently monitor and manage the performance of their business IT environment to meet their e-business needs. The offering from HP OpenView and webMethods will help customers discover and correct problems in application connectivity and will enable better management of application interactions throughout the extended supply chain. While the current HP OpenView offering provides a dashboard for viewing the performance of networks, systems, applications and services, through collaboration with webMethods, HP expects to extend the management capabilities of HP OpenView to include business process management. "webMethods is a proven leader in providing companies with business process automation software solutions," said Bill Russell, vice president, HP Software Solutions Organization. "HP and webMethods' advanced technologies and consulting expertise provide customers a solid foundation for building their e-businesses." "HP and webMethods' joint development efforts will extend to business process management. HP OpenView has the ability to provide customers with a quick and convenient view of how well their entire IT infrastructure is performing, alerting them to potential problems and inefficiencies," said David Mitchell, president and COO of webMethods, Inc. "We look forward to collaborating with HP to develop and market a solution that charts new territory in collaborative commerce." In addition to the joint development work, HP Consulting will recommend the webMethods integration platform as a preferred integration solution for the manufacturing and supply chain markets. HP and webMethods also have agreed to establish and fund a joint program management office to manage technology development, promotional activities and sales engagements.