Intel has dropped the Centrino Atom brand after just five months, opting instead to use just the Atom brand across this part of its product line.

"Basically, we are simplifying and coalescing our efforts around 'Atom' as the single brand for Internet devices," said Nick Jacobs, a company spokesman in Singapore.

Centrino Atom was the brand name given to a chip package formerly codenamed Menlow, which includes an Atom processor and a single-chip chipset. The package was designed for small, handheld computers that Intel calls Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs. But that segment of the market has been slow to take off, with only a trickle of devices hitting the market since Intel launched Centrino Atom at its Intel Developer Forum conference earlier this year.

The Centrino Atom brand was mildly confusing to some observers. Intel's Centrino brand is closely associated with laptops, but Atom-based laptops -- sometimes called netbooks -- were not allowed to use the Centrino Atom brand since these devices used a different version of the Atom processor and a traditional two-chip chipset.

Hardware makers have been notified of the branding change, and MIDs will now be branded with stickers that say Atom, instead of Centrino Atom. The change comes as Intel prepares to roll out the Core brand for its upcoming Nehalem processor line, eventually replacing the Core 2 brand used with Intel's current top-end chips.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.