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How much is the iPhone name worth?

I pinged several people at Macworld, including Apple executives regarding what's behind Apple's use of the iPhone name, given than Cisco owns it.
Written by Dan Farber, Inactive

I pinged several people at Macworld, including Apple executives regarding what's behind Apple's use of the iPhone name, given than Cisco owns it. Cisco issued a lawyerly statement earlier in the day indicating that the two companies are close to working out some agreement that allows Apple to use the name:

"Given Apple's numerous requests for permission to use Cisco's iPhone trademark over the past several years and our extensive discussions with them recently, it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final document and public statements that were distributed to them last night and that address a few remaining items we expect to receive a signed agreement today." 

Just what terms Apple is agreeing to remains to be seen. Steve Jobs is the best negotiator in the business, but if he wants to use the iPhone name he is not necessarily in the best negotiating position. And given, the iPhone is more than a phone (MP3 player, camera, browser, organizer, Mac OS X machine), why the fixation on iPhone. If iTV can become Apple TV, which it did today, why not have an Apple Phone? Of course, iPhone gets the attention of phone buyers, a huge and entirely new market for Apple to plow. So what kind of horse trading is Jobs doing with Cisco?

 [poll id=37]

 

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