Technology Numbering

I’ve always been interested in companies that give their products numbers rather than names. I suppose that a company with the amount of products that HP has can’t come up with names for them all (or can they???)

Some companies do numbers really well. Some companies don’t. My favourite used to be Nokia, who numbered their phones really clearly according to purpose. 1 & 2 series were basic, 3 basic fashion, 8 fashion and 9 communicator. At least it was something like that.

My current beef is with Brother. In their 20xx series they had the 2040 (which I own) and the 2070N – the network version. This series is being replaced by the 21xx series (the basic changes being the omission of the parallel port and an increase in print speed). The 21xx series consists of the 2140, 2150N and 2170W. Why??? Since when is 40 the lower limit and 70 the higher? If I was Brother “Head of Numbering” I would have had it organised as follows: 2140, 2170N, 2190W.

Sure, some people will say “it’s only a number”. My argument is that if it’s such a trivial detail, why not get it right. If you own a 2070N and like it, subconsciously you’ll be attracted to a 2170N rather than a 2150N… right???