ESI Group’s PAM-CRASH Now Available On HP’s Itanium-based Technical Computing Platforms Running HP-UX 11i

PARIS, France and PALO ALTO, Calif., January 29, 2002 - ESI Group, a leading provider of virtual prototyping and manufacturing solutions, and Hewlett-Packard Company, co-developer of the Intel® Itanium™ Instruction Set Architecture, today announced that PAM-CRASH, the world's number one crash test simulation software, is now available on HP’s Itanium-based technical workstations and servers running HP-UX 11i.

Now customers can simulate mechanical structural testing on certified technical computing platforms that leverage the powerful 64-bit architecture found in HP’s Itanium-based products. HP’s product line of Itanium-based workstations and servers now gives PAM-CRASH power users not only the performance they need but the flexibility to choose both desktop and server solutions.

ESI Group has been on the forefront of crash and occupant safety simulation technology. PAM-CRASH is specifically designed to meet the increasingly stringent regulatory crash tests. PAM-CRASH leverages the floating point performance, 64-bit addressing, 16 GB of memory space and high bandwidth of HP’s Itanium-based systems to manage complex assembly models.

"HP's new Itanium-based product line complements our entire application portfolio," said Vincent Chaillou, vice president, Software Edition ESI Group. "We want to allow our customers to start testing and taking advantage of the performance features of Intel Itanium Processor Family (IPF) as early as possible. The fact that HP offers an entire IPF product line, from workstations to high-end Symmetric MultiProcessing (SMP), gives our customers an opportunity to choose their price-point for entry into this exciting new processor technology."

"Having excellent working relationships with Independent Software Vendors like ESI Group allows us to provide technical computing solutions that truly empower our customers," said Chris Christopher, vice president and general manager, HP Technical Computing Division. "PAM-CRASH running on our Itanium-based platform is a tightly coupled solution that can handle incredibly demanding crash analysis tasks."

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services -- is focused on making technology and its benefits accessible to all. HP had total revenue of $45.2 billion in its 2001 fiscal year. 

About ESI Group

Editor of virtual testing solutions, ESI Group is a pioneer and world-leading provider of numerical simulation prototypes and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI Group has developed an entire suite of coherent, industry oriented applications to realistically simulate a product's behavior during testing, to fine tune the manufacturing processes in synergy with the desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment's impact on product usage. ESI Group's product portfolio, which has been industrially validated and combined in multi-trade value chains, represents a unique collaborative, virtual engineering solution, known as the Virtual Try-Out Space (VTOS), enabling a continuous improvement on the virtual prototype. By drastically reducing costs and development lead times, VTOS solutions offer major competitive advantages by progressively eliminating the need for physical prototypes. With revenues close to Euros 41 million in fiscal year 2000, ESI Group (Nouveau Marché: Euronext Paris - Software - Euroclear 6584 - Bloomberg ESI NM - Reuters ESIG.LN) employs about 300 high-level specialists worldwide. The company and its global network of agents provide sales and technical support to customers in more than 30 countries.