HP and Bang & Olufsen Partner to Bring Premium Sound to PCs
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HP and Bang & Olufsen Partner to Bring Premium Sound to PCs

PALO ALTO, CA and COPENHAGEN, DENMARK -- (Marketwired) -- Mar 24, 2015 -- HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Bang & Olufsen today announced a collaboration that brings the globally recognized sound of Bang & Olufsen and B&O PLAY to HP's PCs, tablets and accessories.

"Audio plays an important role in the experience customers have on their PCs, tablets and accessories whether it's watching a movie, listening to music or Skyping with friends and family," said Ron Coughlin, senior vice president, Personal Systems, HP. "With their passion and expertise, we are thrilled to work with Bang & Olufsen to create exceptional sound experiences for customers."

"Bang & Olufsen and B&O PLAY have a long heritage in delivering great music and audio experiences for people no matter where they decide to enjoy their media," said Tue Mantoni, CEO, Bang & Olufsen. "We are excited to collaborate with HP to bring our iconic sound to HP PCs."

Iconic Sound, Innovative Devices
Customers want bold, crisp and accurate audio. They expect their devices to have fantastic sound reproduction whether using headphones or built in speakers. Customers also want to enhance sound to their liking.

Bang & Olufsen is a globally recognized audio and video technology company with 90 years of experience in acoustic excellence and audio performance. Most recently, the company has launched a range of innovative products including its BeoPlay H8 Headphones, BeoPlay A2 music system and BeoSound Moment.

HP and Bang & Olufsen will custom tune each notebook, desktop, tablet and accessory for precise sound. In all HP devices that carry the Bang & Olufsen or B&O PLAY brand, a dedicated audio island isolates the sensitive audio circuits from other signals on the motherboard. The headphone jack limits the amount of metal parts to reduce ground noise to help further perfect the audio experience on HP devices.

Because customers want the ability to customize their audio for movies, music and voice, HP devices include an audio control panel. This allows customers to customize and enhance their audio experience based on preset configurations tuned by HP and Bang & Olufsen. Customers can choose from optimized presets or manually tune the sound to their liking.

The first HP personal computing systems with Bang & Olufsen and B&O PLAY audio will be available this spring. The Bang & Olufsen brand will appear on HP's Spectre, OMEN, ENVY and select commercial PCs. The B&O Play brand will appear on HP Pavilion PCs, tablets and PC audio accessories.

About Bang & Olufsen
Bang & Olufsen was founded in Struer, Denmark, in 1925 by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, two innovative, young engineers devoted to high quality audio reproduction. Since then, the brand has become an icon of performance and design excellence through its long-standing craftsmanship tradition and the strongest possible commitment to high-tech research and development. Still at the forefront of domestic technology, Bang & Olufsen has extended its comprehensive experience with integrated audio and video solutions for the home to other areas such as the hospitality and automotive industries in recent years. Consequently, its current product range epitomises seamless media experiences in the home as well as in the car and on the move. For more information on Bang & Olufsen, please visit www.bang-olufsen.com.

About B&O PLAY
Firmly grounded in decades of design excellence, craftsmanship and product innovation from Bang & Olufsen, B&O PLAY interprets the same values for a new type of contemporary products aimed at design-conscious people with an active lifestyle. The B&O PLAY portfolio is made up of sound systems and stand-alone, portable products -- they're all intuitive to use and easy to integrate into your daily life -- whether it's at home or on the move. For more information on B&O PLAY please visit www.beoplay.com.

About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. With the broadest technology portfolio spanning printing, personal systems, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP delivers solutions for customers' most complex challenges in every region of the world. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If the risks or uncertainties ever materialize or the assumptions prove incorrect, the results of HP may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including but not limited to any projections of revenue, margins, expenses, effective tax rates, net earnings, net earnings per share, cash flows, benefit plan funding, share repurchases, currency exchange rates or other financial items; any projections of the amount, timing or impact of cost savings or restructuring charges; any statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations, including the previously announced separation transaction and the future performances of the post-separation companies if the separation is completed, as well as the execution of restructuring plans and any resulting cost savings or revenue or profitability improvements; any statements concerning the expected development, performance, market share or competitive performance relating to products or services; any statements regarding current or future macroeconomic trends or events and the impact of those trends and events on HP and its financial performance; any statements regarding pending investigations, claims or disputes; any statements of expectation or belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include the need to address the many challenges facing HP's businesses; the competitive pressures faced by HP's businesses; risks associated with executing HP's strategy, including the planned separation transaction; the impact of macroeconomic and geopolitical trends and events; the need to manage third-party suppliers and the distribution of HP's products and the delivery of HP's services effectively; the protection of HP's intellectual property assets, including intellectual property licensed from third parties; risks associated with HP's international operations; the development and transition of new products and services and the enhancement of existing products and services to meet customer needs and respond to emerging technological trends; the execution and performance of contracts by HP and its suppliers, customers and partners; the hiring and retention of key employees; integration and other risks associated with business combination and investment transactions; the execution, timing and results of the separation transaction or restructuring plans, including estimates and assumptions related to the cost (including any possible disruption to HP's business) and the anticipated benefits of implementing the separation transaction and restructuring plans; the resolution of pending investigations, claims and disputes; and other risks that are described in HP's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2013 and HP's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including HP's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2014. As in prior periods, the financial information set forth in this release, including tax-related items, reflects estimates based on information available at this time. While HP believes these estimates to be reasonable, these amounts could differ materially from reported amounts in HP's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2014. In particular, determining HP's tax balances and provisions as of October 31, 2014 requires extensive internal and external review of tax data (including consolidating and reviewing the tax provisions of numerous domestic and foreign entities), which is being completed in the ordinary course of preparing HP's Annual Report on Form 10-K. HP assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

© 2015 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

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Editorial contacts

Kaitlyn Dierkes
HP

kaitlyn.m.dierkes@hp.com

Jan Helleskov
Bang & Olufsen 

JHK@bang-olufsen.dk

Monica Gartner
Bang & Olufsen

mcy@bang-olufsen.dk


www.hp.com/go/newsroom