PALO ALTO, Calif., May 8, 2001 Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HWP) and Accenture today announced an alliance to provide IT outsourcing services to enterprises. The two firms will focus on migrating legacy mainframe applications to next generation architectures and platforms as well as supporting "backwards" integration with legacy applications. These new services will give enterprises a faster and simpler way to harness IT assets while minimizing costs and risk. The alliance formalizes a three-year collaboration developed to support the full lifecycle of complex Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions, among the most difficult to implement and scale globally. The two companies have already collaborated on 15 engagements and developed repeatable best practice methodologies for ERP outsourcing. Today's announcement builds on this heritage to provide customers with a single point of contact and accountability for program management. "Today's companies feel the pain of shifting markets, increased competition and staffing issues. At the same time, they must innovate and deliver great customer service. The last thing they should have to worry about is technology and business process infrastructures," said Ann Livermore, president, HP Services. "Our customers, trading partners, employees and other stakeholders all stand to benefit from the alliance of HP and Accenture -- two great companies delivering one powerful solution." "No company can afford the luxury of endless implementation cycles. Senior executives want results quickly, and we have already shown that our relationship with HP can deliver proven, battle-tested solutions and methodologies to our customers," said Martin I. Cole, managing partner, outsourcing, Accenture. "Going forward, it is what this alliance will provide to the even broader market for outsourced solutions." The alliance marries Accenture's leading industry, management and technology expertise with HP's leadership in technology, innovation and operational services. The companies can offer enterprises the ability to design, build, run and operate applications across a spectrum of outsourced IT lifecycle and infrastructure solutions. A key benefit of the alliance between HP and Accenture is the ability to offer a delivery and implementation strategy that facilitates success at each stage of a migration - from legacy systems to architecting new business models - in a pre-determined timeframe. This mitigates delays and project creep. One of the alliance customers is Halliburton Company, the multinational energy services giant. This company has harnessed its enormous potential to create a seamless organization with the capabilities to provide a diversity of customers with safe, smart, integrated, cost-efficient solutions across businesses, geographic boundaries and operating companies. "The ERP approach creates a process for moving, managing, accessing, sharing and leveraging the vast knowledge residing within the people and the capabilities of Halliburton Company," said Gary Morris, executive vice president, CFO and ERP project sponsor. "Accenture and HP are supporting one of the largest SAP solution deployments in the world, with 371 sites in 117 countries, involving more than 11,000 users."