PALO ALTO, CA -- HP (NYSE:HPQ) today strengthened its leadership in UNIX® computing by introducing HP-UX 11i Version 1.6, which offers customers a rich and robust enterprise operating environment for the Intel® Itanium® processor family. HP is the first company to bring to market a UNIX operating environment for Itanium-based systems, positioning HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 as the industry's new de facto standard. Offering data, source and binary compatibility between the PA-RISC and Itanium architectures, HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 provides customers with lasting value and unparalleled investment protection by providing them with a clear transition path to Itanium-based systems. The new release is also supported by BEA, which is supporting HP-UX 11i as a strategic tier one platform. Building on an installed base of more than 1.7 million HP-UX installations worldwide, this new release provides commercial and technical computing customers with a robust enterprise operating environment that offers enhanced mission-critical availability, reliability, performance scalability, manageability and security compared to previous HP-UX releases. "We're excited to see the introduction of HP-UX 11i Version 1.6, an enterprise-class UNIX operating system for Itanium-based systems, as it provides a robust path for the adoption of the Itanium processor family in the enterprise computing space," said Richard Dracott, director of enterprise group marketing, Intel. "Intel and HP have worked closely together on the development of Itanium-based solutions and the combination of HP-UX 11i and the Itanium 2 processor will provide customers with world-class reliability, scalability, performance and economics." HP-UX 11i was recently rated the world's No. 1 UNIX operating system in a report from industry analyst firm D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. The report evaluated the industry's top UNIX-based operating systems on an extensive and stringent set of criteria for enterprise customers and HP-UX 11i garnered the top spot in all five of the report's categories, in addition to earning the overall No. 1 position. HP Tru64 UNIX, an integral part of HP's UNIX portfolio, also showed strong results in the DH Brown report, earning top marks in two of the report's five categories. As part of its ongoing plan to continue enhancing the functionality of HP-UX, HP plans to bring key features from Tru64, including its TruClusters and Advanced File System capabilities, into future releases of HP-UX 11i. "With the release of HP-UX 11i for the Itanium processor family, HP brings its proven UNIX operating system to Itanium 2-based systems," said Al Gillen, research director, system software, IDC. "HP's interoperability strategy -- both for UNIX across the Intel processor family and PA-RISC, and for UNIX-to-Linux compatibility -- is among the best in the industry. This high level of interoperability provides HP's customers with choice and flexibility, which will help promote adoption of Itanium-based servers in enterprise environments." BEA Support HP also announced today that HP and BEA are strengthening their relationship by working together to accelerate the adoption of the Itanium processor family among enterprise customers. BEA will port both BEA WebLogic application server and BEA Tuxedo to HP-UX 11i Version 1.6, with a fully supported customer version available during the second half of the year. HP-UX will be BEA's first enterprise-class UNIX operating environment supported on the Itanium processor family. "The combination of HP-UX 11i and BEA's WebLogic application server provides customers with superior performance, reliability, security and price advantage of the Itanium processor family," said Gamiel Gran, vice president, worldwide alliances, BEA Systems. "We are delighted to be working with industry leader HP and heartily endorse HP-UX 11i on the Itanium processor family." Enhanced Features and Functionality The launch of HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 brings significant new functionality to the HP-UX operating environment. With a design that supports up to 64 central processing units, HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 offers unmatched performance and scalability for Itanium-based systems. HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 provides high-availability and workload management functionality, as well as comprehensive integrated security features such as intrusion detection, directory-enabled authentication and high-performance Web servers, such as HP Apache and Zeus, with built-in encryption/decryption libraries. HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 enhances single system availability by providing dynamic kernel tuning, online data backup and the ability to hot-swap fans, power supplies and peripherals. Additionally, with the launch of HP's new HP-UX System Inventory Manager and HP-UX Kernel Configuration tools, HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 delivers enhanced systems management capabilities. "HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 sets the standard for UNIX operating systems, providing an open, flexible, rock-solid operating environment required by today's enterprise customers," said Mark Hudson, worldwide marketing manager, HP Business Critical Systems. "The launch of HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 represents the latest milestone in a rich HP-UX roadmap that offers customers increased value for years to come." HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 also offers industry-standard application programming interfaces, Java tools and native developer tool kits to enable application developers to optimize their application performance with open-source tools. Additionally, the release's source compatibility with Linux aids customers' development on Linux and deployment on HP-UX 11i. More information on HP-UX 11i Version 1.6 is available at http://www.hp.com/go/hpuxforitanium.