Evesham Technology has urged customers not to be concerned over reports that the company is up for sale.

The company said that while the collapse of the Government's Home Computing Initiative (HCI) had forced the company to diversify and actively seek new investment, its PC business was stable.

A representative said: "PCs are not quite the luxury items they once were. In order to prosper we have to look to changing the size of Evesham Technology and will continue to talk to companies about investment."

She stressed that customers who had placed orders would experience business as usual. "As Mark Twain once said, 'rumours of our death have been greatly exaggerated'. We have a massive book of orders that we are busy fulfilling."

Evesham is hopeful that the proposed replacement for the HCI, which could give employees the facility to spread the payments for a PC over a set period via a loan from their employer, will boost sales of PCs. The company said it had already diversified into consumer electronics devices such as LCD televisions.