GTE Internetworking chosen to provide hosting infrastructure for HP's Commerce for the Millennium system. Reliable, secure andscalable services are critical to success of e-commerce platform for small- to

BURLINGTON, Mass.- GTE Internetworking was chosen by Hewlett-Packard Company as the infrastructure provider of choice for its new Commerce for the Millennium system. The system, which enables small- and medium-sized businesses to develop e-services for electronic commerce in fewer than 90 days, requires a robust combination of secure and scalable hosting services to meet the demands of this highly anticipated program.

To support the Commerce for the Millennium system, HP has created risk- and reward-sharing alliances with its service-provider customers in which HP bears a significant portion of the up-front costs to deploy, support and co-market the program. HP revenue from this program is derived directly from the success of its service-provider customers; therefore, HP has turned to GTEI to provide a reliable, high-performance hosting environment with exceptional management expertise to ensure its investment.

"HP's model is a great opportunity for HP resellers," said Paul O'Brien, vice president, sales and marketing for GTE. "Because HP will absorb the up-front cost, it needs to host the system on secure, reliable infrastructure like GTE's to alleviate as much of that risk as possible."

Additionally, HP selected GTE Internetworking because of its expertise in selling and supporting large, complex e-services solutions - an integral part of its specialized force of Electronic Business Consultants. The EBCs directly assist customers in the planning and implementation of e-business applications similar in scale to the Commerce for the Millennium system.

The Infrastructure for E-business

Forward-thinking companies realize they need to be backed with a solid infrastructure, capable of handling large amounts of traffic and complex transactions. GTE recognized this need and has built its own high-speed, high-capacity private Internet backbone, the Global Network Infrastructure (GNI.) Advantages, such as the GNI and 10 strategically located global data centers, position GTE as one of the industry's leading providers of Internet services including Web hosting, Internet access, security and VPNs (virtual private networks). Application developers and integrators like HP partner with GTE because they understand the importance of this infrastructure to the success of their e-business initiatives.

"Success in the e -business arena requires that leading-edge application solutions like the Commerce for the Millennium system be hosted on secure, reliable infrastructure," said HP's Bhaskar Gorti, general manager, small- and medium-sized (SMB) business, e-services. "GTE' Internetworking's reputation for providing reliability and scalability in a hosted application environment was precisely what we needed."

Commerce for the Millennium

HP's Commerce for the Millennium is an end-to-end hosted e-commerce solution that will enable service providers to quickly offer e-services for electronic commerce to small- and medium-sized businesses. The solution meets service providers' operations needs by integrating all the technologies small- and medium-sized businesses need to set up shops online, including Breakthrough Software's ShopZone store building software, Cisco Systems' network infrastructure and Portal's merchant-care application. Unlike solutions that service providers have to assemble themselves, Commerce for the Millennium is a pre-integrated solution that HP deploys in fewer than 90 days.

About GTE Internetworking

GTE Internetworking, a unit of GTE Corporation (NYSE: GTE), offers customers, from consumers to Fortune 500 companies, a full spectrum of integrated Internet services using IP networking technologies. GTE Internetworking delivers complete network solutions, including dial-up and dedicated Internet access, high-performance Web hosting, virtual private networks (VPNs), managed Internet security, network management, systems integration, and Web-based application development for integrating the Internet into business operations. Additional information about GTE Internetworking and GTE Corp. can be found on the Internet at http://www.gte.com.

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