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HP puts Evo name out to pasture

The Compaq-created brand, which will no longer be used on Hewlett-Packard PCs, joins Vectra, Jornada and Netserver in the company's graveyard of product names.

John G. Spooner Staff Writer, CNET News.com
John Spooner
covers the PC market, chips and automotive technology.
John G. Spooner
2 min read
Hewlett-Packard is ditching the Evo name.

The tech giant said Thursday it will no longer use the brand on computers. The name, created by Compaq, is being retired so HP can simplify the marketing of its business-oriented desktops and notebooks, a company representative said.

HP had originally chosen to keep releasing corporate PCs under the Evo brand, which it acquired under its $19 billion merger with Houston-based Compaq last May. But in the future, the Palo Alto, Calif., company will use a shorter "HP Compaq" brand for its enterprise-market computers instead of "HP Compaq Evo," the representative said. The move lets the company focus on the more recognizable Compaq name in selling its PCs to businesses.

The Evo brand, introduced by Compaq to describe its business-oriented desktops and notebooks, debuted in May 2001. The single brand replaced Compaq's Deskpro brand for desktops and Armada for its notebooks.

The last product to carry the HP Compaq Evo brand is the Evo N620C, a notebook based on Intel's new Pentium-M chip that was launched this week.

Evo joins a number of former HP or Compaq brands in the company's marketing graveyard, sent there when HP chose the strongest product lines to continue with after the merger. The company did away with the HP Vectra and Omnibook brands for business desktops and notebooks, for example, and kept on Compaq's ProLiant server brand name over its own Netserver for its line of Intel-processor servers. It also retired Jornada, its personal digital assistant brand, in favor of Compaq's iPaq.

On the consumer side, HP plans to continue with its HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario brand names for consumer desktops and notebooks.

The company has maintained both of its consumer brands by differentiating the lines by giving them different designs and offering different features and price ranges for each. HP Pavilion PCs aim for the high end of the market, competing with companies such as Apple Computer and Sony. Compaq Presarios are designed to compete on price with models from the likes of eMachines and Dell Computer.

By maintaining both brands, HP enjoys a huge retail presence, regularly claiming the No. 1 PC seller slot, according to research firm NPD Techworld.