iPhone Fiasco Finished

Written by Adam Gosling

Thursday, 22 February 2007

Cisco and Apple have agreed to do nothing about their dispute over the use of Cisco's trademark name iPhone. How can that be? The companies admitted they have been in discussions over this for ages without a resolution. Then in a bizarre move Steve Job went out on a limb at Mac World and announced the new device using the brand name without Cisco's permission. When Cisco got all hot under the collar and lodged a suit against Apple complaining that it had given the Pod maker plenty of opportunity to come to an agreement over the phone. Now the two have agreed to disagree!!! And Cisco is just going to let Apple use its trademark like good old buddies? Yeah, Right? Does anybody else here smell a rat? Or more likely a PR beat up? What sort of games are these large corporates playing. That is the sort of behaviour I'd expect to see in the playground, or in the Open Source community in the very least. According to the statement from Cisco the two have "resolved their dispute" over the iPhone trademark and are now both "free" to use it willy nilly worldwide. "In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications," says the statement without being specific about which products they are talking about. That might be in the telecommunications area, might not. Then, the statement says the "Other terms of the agreement are confidential"? What's does that mean? Has Steve Jobs promised to give John Chambers a foot rub if Apple can use the trademark? Cisco has just announced its big consumer play at CES, perhaps Cisco has managed to get the inside running on iTunes integration with the intelligent networked home. Something is going on here, because this trademark is pretty important to Apple, now it is anyway. Apple could have called it the PodPhone and got away with it. Let's face it, Apple devotees would buy the thing if it was called the Herpes Phone. While Jobs was deliberately flouting the Cisco iPhone trademark at MacWorld, Chambers was at CES spruiking the Human Network and promising to build more intelligence into the network to allow true consumer focused convergence across any device. Any device, Chambers promised. That can now include IPods and iPhones. All that was only six weeks ago. But this trademark must have meant next to nothing to Cisco and you have to wonder exactly what Jobs promised Chambers to get access to it. Related news items Tiny Rugged UMPC WIth Vista -10/10/2007 Consumers Want FMC: Companies Don't See The Benefit -02/10/2007 Nokia Buys Map Company For US$8 Billion -02/10/2007 Seven In Unwired Takeover Bid -26/09/2007 Major Players To Test WiMAX Interoperability -26/09/2007 Newer news items Huawei CDMA Revenues Grow 30% -13/03/2007 Palm Shares A Roller Coaster -05/03/2007 Billion Phone Goal Missed By A RAZR Edge -05/03/2007 Nokia, RIM, Panasonic - In That Order -28/02/2007 Mobile Speakers For You Mobile Phone -25/02/2007 Older news items Phone Makers Accused Of Tween Targetting -18/02/2007 Nokia Readies To Trim Workforce -18/02/2007 New AMD Chip For Handhelds -13/02/2007 Philips Signs Last Of Its Phone Business Over To CEC -12/02/2007 Samsung Quits Notebook Business -29/01/2007 Tag This Now: