Hewlett-Packard Co is establishing a research facility in Milan, Italy to serve as one of its international development centres for network technologies based on the Open Systems Interconnection standard. The European Network Technology Centre, Hewlett’s first non-sales operation in Italy, will conduct proprietary research and will cooperate with European research bodies and industries working on OSI network technologies and data communications. The company says that creation of the centre is part of its overall HP Advancenet networking strategy which embraces the OSI model and that it will come under its Information Networks Group. It will have strong links with the European manufacturing facility for networking kit in Grenoble, France.