Founded in 1982 by Bill Murto, Jim Harris and Rod Canion, Compaq (an acronym for COMPatibility And Quality) was one of the first companies to produce affordable IBM PC-compatible computers. The company was acquired by HP (Hewlett-Packard) in 2002.

Compaq initially launched the iPAQ in April 2000. iPAQs are Pocket PCs or PDAs and the name was used as an extension of the iPAQ line of Desktop Personal Computers. They are now marketed as HP iPAQs. iPAQs run on a Microsoft Windows interface providing far better multimedia capabilities as compared to other devices in its class. The top-of-the-line units are equipped with 'sleeve' accessories, also called jackets, that slide around the device and provide functions such as wireless networking, GPS, a card reader and spare batteries.

The 3600 series or iPAQ's 'star' models primarily run on the Microsoft Windows for Pocket PC 2000 OS but can be upgraded to the PPC2002 OS in some cases. These PDAs have a 12-bit color display, 64 MB RAM and 16 MB ROM. The iPAQ 3600 series offers memory expandability using Compact Flash Card sleeves and PCMCIA sleeves. The latest in the iPAQ series are the HP iPAQ Mobile Messenger hw6900s. These devices feature GPS navigation, Wi-Fi, camera, MP3 player and a built-in phone. With rivals like Palm, Dell, and Handspring offering tough competition, the HP iPAQ looks ahead with smarter, more powerful products.