I think most of us have had the experience of working someplace where the
name of the company, or a department, or a position within the organization
had its name changed.  The management folks who spent many high-salaried
hours coming up with the new name seemed to believe that a name change was
sufficient to bring about a material change in the way business was done.
In reality, the administrative assistant still does the same job the
secretary used to do, and Technology Services still does the same job MIS
used to do.  A name change is meaningless, unless some substantive changes
in behavior accompanies it.  It is that follow-through that so many
companies fail at.

To HP's credit, I think we can safely say that they never intended the
addition of the "e" to the name of our beloved computer to change the way we
veterans use or speak of it. (We may change or expand its applications, but
not because of a name change!)  It was intended to convey to potential
customers that this is an appropriate machine for "e-commerce".  Assuming HP
follows through with advertising and other marketing efforts to reinforce
that image, it may in fact accomplish that goal.  Unfortunately, those
potential customers might be convinced that the 3000 is a useful e-commerce
machine, but will fail to adopt it out of fear.  They will fear that this
system is too far out of the mainstream and may not be around for much
longer.  These fears will be reinforced by HP's failure to include the 3000
in its discussions of available products and by other slights, such as the
recent changes to HP's web site.

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