Apple, Cisco, and iPhone

Quote

"Leaving Google out for a moment, the deal implies that Apple and Cisco will work together on something or in some way in the future, which in the rapidly changing digital media, computing and entertainment landscape could be a useful bit of insurance to have, although it does ultimately depend on Apple and Steve Jobs wanting to play ball. So now we bring Google back in where we started. With Google and Apple very good friends, with Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt on Apple’s Board, how might Google have reacted to an intransigent Cisco willing to go to court with Apple over the iPhone name, no matter what? From Cisco’s point of view, it’s all a bit too scary to think about. Cisco got to put out the ‘nobody messes with us or we sue’ message out there lest anyone else think they can similarly outsmart Cisco. While Cisco have ‘lost’ to Apple, Cisco’s new ‘iPhone’ range has had the best free publicity in the global press ever, with the hope that anyone looking for a wireless VoIP phone that works with Skype and other VoIP providers – with that market growing quite nicely - might have had so much Cisco iPhone exposure that the Cisco/Linksys iPhone range proves to be a success all of their very own! That, and keeping Google, one of your biggest customers on side, just may have made pressing the whole iPhone issue one of the smartest moves Cisco have made in a while."