Thursday, February 22nd 2007
Cisco and Apple reach iPhone agreement
Ever since Apple introduced its iPhone, lawsuits against the product have going on. Happily for Apple, it has managed to reach an agreement with Cisco Systems. The networking company had held the iPhone name since 2000, and was a bit miffed at the new product - but it seems the two companies can share after all.
Late on Wednesday afternoon, Cisco and Apple officially announced an end to the feud over the trademark. That's right, iPhone-gate is over without a single shot being fired, no loss of life, and (oddly enough) both companies able to use the brand name.
The companies publicly stated a cessation of all litigation over the dispute in a joint statement, and promised to allow each enterprise to market its product worldwide. The financial terms for the agreement were not disclosed, but one can bet that it wasn't cheap for Apple. In what is likely a nod of favor to Cisco for dropping the suit, the statement also talked about a new partnership between the two firms, with Apple working to provide better integration with future Cisco products.
Source:
Bit-tech
Late on Wednesday afternoon, Cisco and Apple officially announced an end to the feud over the trademark. That's right, iPhone-gate is over without a single shot being fired, no loss of life, and (oddly enough) both companies able to use the brand name.
The companies publicly stated a cessation of all litigation over the dispute in a joint statement, and promised to allow each enterprise to market its product worldwide. The financial terms for the agreement were not disclosed, but one can bet that it wasn't cheap for Apple. In what is likely a nod of favor to Cisco for dropping the suit, the statement also talked about a new partnership between the two firms, with Apple working to provide better integration with future Cisco products.
7 Comments on Cisco and Apple reach iPhone agreement
This is a good sign that companies aren't trying to monopolise the market.
I think that there will be great technological cooperation between the two parties... like iPhone 2 having VoIP over cicso routers, etc. But there will then MOST DEFINITELY be a Apple-Cicso combo duopoly.
Cisco spends billions of dollars a year on R&D, they're at the forefront building intelligent self-defending networks -- imagine if Cisco helped implement some of their IOS technologies from their products into the Apple Mac OS? You could definitely have a much more robust security platform than we're seeing with Vista's "cancel or allow" approach or even MacOS' underlying security features as tey presently stand.
On the flip side, Cisco can benefit from Apple's ability to make anything Steve Jobs talks about "cool". Cisco has a lot of very cool products -- to the geeks that understand them, that is. To the average mortal who doesn't understand the importance of higher-end IOS routers and believes the world can be run on off-the-shelf Linksys and D-Link equipment, Cisco hasn't been able to compell them to learn more and to discover the advantages of their products.
When you think about it (and I know this is an Apple-slanted statement), Cisco and Apple are alike in that they both have very superior products to the competitors they face and yet people simply don't understand them entirely. Apple has started to turn this around with the iPod and the very cool machines they've been releasing since the original 1997 iMac -- Cisco could benefit from Apple's experiences.
Anyways Apple is getting stronger, and thats good. And their commercials are funny, if retarded. I like Cisco, I would like to see them get stronger and better, and if Apple can do that for them, well then I might have to hate Apple less.
On that note, where can I buy a Cisco router?
Original thoughts "Think about it, Cisco has already gotten more than they need. Even if they were to just share the name at this point.
Millions more people than EVER did or would have now know that Cisco has a phone and because of stupid curiosity if nothing else now have to look it up.
I think apple is unwilling to give up "goods" not money and Cisco new it and has now embarrassed apple and advertised to billions. Technically both have won, so far not only did apple announce it but the next day it was on top again and in 3,6,9 months it will be on top of everything again when its settled. People don't care about bad publicity like this as long as it has EVERYONES attention."