Hewlett Packard (HWP) and Compaq (CPQ) discarded sixty years of cumulative stock market history with a bold gesture that signifies their unity, the companies announced today.

From now on, the merged entity will be known as "SRCAM", obsoleting the old ticker symbols. The change is effective from Monday - so please update your portfolio software to take effect of this.

HPW and CPQ are merging, but as from Monday, they'll trade as HPQ: and that's surely one of the easier decisions their executives have had to make.

And the "Sircam merger" was only our way of trying to understand why Hewlett Packard and Compaq got together in the first place. Now we think we understand. It goes like this.

We hate shopping. More accurately, I hate shopping. The choice confounds me. The other day, I went to buy a coffee grinder, and came back with a piano tuning fork. Can you imagine? I don't even have a piano.

Carly Fiorina set out to buy a services company, and plumped for PriceWaterhouseCooper. This was widely praised as a shrewd strategic move.

Although HP has a stellar R&D department, long standing loyal enterprise customers, unique big iron expertise, a go-ahead storage division, and a big PC business, she wanted something different. Something that could add to the business: something differentiate the venerable Silicon Valley pioneer from its competitors. Something really different. A USP.

But the bid failed. So she bought Compaq.

Which has a stellar R&D department, long standing loyal enterprise customers, unique big iron expertise, a go-ahead storage division, and a big PC business.

We entirely understand. You can't always get what you want.

Shopping sucks. ®