Say’Hi’ to the iPhone
p2pnet.net News:- Steve J is, to be polite, thoroughly piqued.
The iPhone is on the way. But it has zip to do with Apple. Rather, “Linksys, a division of Cisco Systems, introduced two VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) handsets adding to five others the company already offers,” says the IDG News Service.
Most important, “The group of phones is now part of a Linksys family of products called iPhone.”
Cisco revealed it’s been holding onto the registered name of “iPhone” since it took over a company called Infogear in 2000, says the story, going on, “Infogear had released a previous version of the iPhone in 1997, but sales of the phone were not impressive.”
“Apple filed a patent application for a combination phone and music player on Nov. 30,” says The Globe & Mail, going on, “Cisco acquired the iPhone trademark through a $301-million (U.S.) stock deal in 2000 to buy Infogear Technology Corp., which specialized in Internet appliances.”
Will we soon see a lawsuit blitz launched at Cisco by a highly pissed Steve Jobs who does, after all, seem to believe he automatically has the rights to everything with ‘pods’ or ‘i’ in it?
Apple has been trying to plug its ‘i’-products as a free-standing brand, “but they may have to change tactics,” observes The Ottawa Citizen.
It quotes David Dunne, a marketing expert at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, who has an interesting take on the situation.
“They may have to reintroduce the Apple brand name,” he says, “noting the company could opt to trademark their own future phone as an ‘Apple iPhone’ in order to differentiate it from the Cisco product.”
Meanwhile, the iPhone Cordless Internet Telephony Kit will sell for $80 with other models and bundles going from $1000 to $330.
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
Also See:
IDG News Service – The iPhone Is Launched … By Linksys, Not Apple, December 18, 2006
The Globe & Mail – The iPhone’s here, but it’s not what you think, December 18, 2006
The Ottawa Citizen – Here comes the iPhone, but it’s not from Apple, December 18, 2006
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