Shattering the previous SAP Retail Module benchmark of 2.4 million line items per hour, Compaq Computer Corp., Microsoft Corp., and SAP AG jointly produced a benchmark number of 3.0l million sales data line items per hour. The new capability gives large retailers access to a powerful point-of-sale solution based on industry standard technology at a fraction of the cost of previous proprietary mid-range platforms. “This benchmark achieved by ProLiant and SQL Server 7.0 is further evidence that Microsoft and Compaq are working to drive NT to the highest levels of the enterprise,” says Michael Capellas, Compaq Computer president and CEO. “Add SAP R/3 to this combination and you now own a powerful enterprise resource planning solution for the retail industry at that is second to none.” “The results of this benchmark are remarkable. Microsoft, Compaq and SAP continue to push the envelope to provide customers with increases in performance and scalability, with ever decreasing costs,” says Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and CEO. “Today, over six out of 10 new SAP customers prefer the Windows NT platform to run their mission-critical business systems.” The SAP Retail benchmark measures inbound point-of-sales line item transactions, and as such it is analogous to a real-world retail sales transaction environment. The benchmark was conducted using 27 Compaq 8-way ProLiant SAP R/3 application servers running Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition, one ProLiant 7000 application server, and one ProLiant 8000 database server running SQL Server 7.0 Enterprise Edition. The previous record was set by Sun Microsystems on its 32 processor UE10000.