Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Cisco Sues Apple for the iPhone Name

So, this is a bit bone-headed on Apple's part -- use a name that Cisco and its aquirees have been using since 1996. So now Cisco is suing. I guess they did not come to an agreement on time. My guess is they will -- or Apple will call it the Apple Phone -- which is a better name, anyway, in my opinion, since the iPhone, er, Apple Phone is really a hand-held Mac and not a beefed-up iPod. Cisco's iPhone is a Voice over IP home/business unit, and is a lot more utilitarian.

Cisco has embedded either Skype or Yahoo into its units, and uses that "transport" to do internet phone calling. It is a replacement for (or augmentation to) your "land-line." It is wireless in that your wireless phone at home is wireless: at home only, although there are also Wifi iPhones as well, that use a wireless internet connection and do not need a PC to work -- so you can use it at your local coffee shop that offers free Wifi access. Cool in its own right, but geeky. I have not tried it, so I don't know if it works or not, but I can say, it is not an Apple.

This changes nothing fundamental -- the ApplePhone is very cool, and as I said, I'm getting two.

1 comments:

James P said...

Hmmm... I figger Jobs knew exactly what he was doing -- for whatever reason a deal could not be made by Keynote Day (methinks due to Cisco wanting to be involved with the device somehow, not due to money), so he went ahead and announced it as the iPhone knowing full well Cisco would get bent about it.

It's generating some extra publicity getting the name "iPhone" out there. Say "iPhone" to anyone and they will associate it with Apple, regardless of who owns the trademark. Jobs has 6 months to deal with it, and he really has all the leverage in the deal: Comes June, he can call it anything he wants and he'll still sell a metric sh*tload of 'em.