B&L Associates

B&L ANNOUNCES ALLIANCE WITH HP

Joins HP's Computing Solutions Provider Program and brings Vertices media/tape management to HP customer base…

NEEDHAM, Mass. - Feb. 26, 2001 - B&L Associates Inc., a leader in open systems media/tape management, today announced that it has joined HP's Computing Solutions Provider Program (CSPP). As a CSPP participant, B&L will be able to better collaborate with HP in bringing its Vertices® media/tape management system to HP customers.

Vertices enables system administrators to create and manage hundreds to thousands of tapes across the enterprise. Vertices provides removable media management to tapes and other media in HP OpenView OmniBack II environments.

"HP's Computing Solutions Provider Program is designed to assist technology providers in offering our customers a choice of capabilities to meet their business needs," commented John Selep, product marketing manager for HP's Networked Storage Solutions Organization. "B&L, with its Vertices tape management product, is a key example. It works with and extends HP OpenView OmniBack II, providing a mainframe-class offline tape management capability our customers may be looking for."

B&L's Vertices media management system leverages HP's comprehensive backup and recovery offerings by using a Vertices Automation Agent™ to receive relevant media information from HP OpenView OmniBack II. In this way, a single logging system controls online, offline and even archived tapes to ensure the recovery and protection of critical data. By extending HP OpenView OmniBack II, Vertices maximizes business continuity, enabling customers to implement complete disaster recovery solutions.

"At B&L we provide robust enterprise-class tape and media management to the same market that is served by HP OpenView OmniBack II," said Michael Kramer, vice president of sales and marketing at B&L. "We look forward to working with HP and with their many solutions partners to bring comprehensive information management solutions to their customers. HP is a great company and we're proud to be associated with it."

About Hewlett Packard's CSPP

The CSPP offers technical, marketing and sales assistance to qualified solution providers. The CSPP is designed to enable partners to leverage HP's products and services to deliver differentiated solutions to their customers and increase revenue potential. For more information about HP's CSPP, visit the web site at www.hp.com/go/partners.

About B&L Associates Inc.

B&L Associates, established in 1975, is a global leader in data center solutions. The company offers a full suite of data center operations automation products and storage management solutions for open and legacy environments. B&L, with installations in 26 countries, serves some of the world's leading organizations, including Arthur Andersen, Credit Suisse|First Boston, Qualcomm, and Weyerhauser Company. For further information, contact B&L at 877-VERTICES (877-837-8423), the corporate website at www.bandl.com, or the Vertices website located at www.vertices.net.

B&L, the B&L Associates logo, the BBARS logos, BL/SCHED, BL/PACK, BL/SOURCE, BL/DIST, and BL/LIB are registered trademarks of B&L Associates, Inc. VERTICES®, the Vertices® logo, and THE POINT WHERE ALL MEDIA COME TOGETHER are registered trademarks and VERTICES AUTOMATION MODULE™, VERTICES AUTOMATION AGENT™, VERTICES BAR CODE SCANNING MODULE™, and VERTICES LABELWRITER MODULE™ are trademarks exclusively licensed to B&L Associates, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Editors - for further information contact:

L.J. DiCarlo
B&L Associates
781/444-1404
ljdicarlo@bandl.com

Sandy McLaughlin
Soucy Communications Group
978/266-1700
sandym@scg-pr.com