Cisco smacks back at Apple on its blog

Ya, a pretty good post.
The thing I noticed was the 8:00pm time and no word that night or after the keynote. I don’t really find that surprising. Jobs is noted for rehersing late into the night and he’s one pretty busy guy doing interviews after his keynotes.
And, since the sticking point was interoperability, I’d bet that isn’t something Apple can do/control, after all, the network belongs to Cingular. They’d probably have to consult with Cingular at the very least.
So, could it be that Cisco jumped the gun with a lawsuit?

Ooops…forgot…
After all, they didn’t necessarily have to file today, they have six months before Apple actually infringes with a shipping product.

Cisco is really naive if it thinks that it can bully Steve into submission by suing him. What a joke!

Wall Street Journal:

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling called the Cisco lawsuit “silly,” adding there are several companies using the term iPhone for VOIP products, and Cisco’s trademark is “tenuous at best.”

“We’re the first company to ever use the iPhone name for a cellphone,” he said. “If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we’re very confident we’ll prevail.”

If you read Cisco’s blog posting, it’s clear that this was not a licensing issue or a money issue. Rather, Cisco wanted to partner with Apple.

Well … that’s a much different animal, and something that Apple does not do easily or often.

My take:
Why Apple left Cisco at the alter

Well this just helps Apple’s cause, nothing like a bit of controversy to get more publicity for a new concept.
This thing will run and run

Robert, your shows won’t play on the Apple TV the same way they don’t play on the iPod. Pure lock-in on Apple’s part. Tell the Xbox 360 guys to support more formats, including Divx.

I think its a great PR move and will gaurentee awaremness and brand recognition for all. If nothing else it will make for some great online mudslinging and fun news stories. Thanks for the link to the Cisco blog posting.

Yes. There’s no argument that Apple can use here that makes them appear reasonable.

Cisco has the iPhone trademark. Apple didn’t (and seemingly doesn’t) respect that. Why should anyone respect Apple’s IP now?

It’s a non-issue. Either they’ll change the name to something more appropriate for the device or as Apple has stated, they’ll prevail. RDF back-up Robert!

A trademark is only a trademark when it is being protected. Just as Google politely asks us to stop using Google as a verb, just as Kimberly-Clark fights to keep people from referring to all tissues as Kleenex, all trademark owners must stake out their territory – or lose it. In England the Hoover corporation lost their battle and hoover has come to mean vacuuming the carpet.

It is almost as if Apple owns the lowercase ‘i’ and this didn’t just happen yesterday, it started with the iMac and has been gaining strength ever since. Cisco is in a strange situation. Should it have begun defending ‘iPhone’ before their product even existed? Can Apple stake out ‘i’ for itself?

For that matter, how can Cisco even begin to think about fighting this when the public mind has already ceded the iPhone to Apple?

Why should this surprise anyone. Have you forgotten the Apple vs Apple Computers lawsuit? Apple entered into agreements with the Beatles record company then disregarded it when it suited Apple Computers. When Apple inc. sued Apple Computers over these agreements they lost their latest round. That’s why you see the Apple name now and not Apple Computers. It’s what the record company lost out on in the last lawsuit.

First a few facts about Steve Jobs and Apple, and then let’s sit back and try to remember why we idolize this company.

1. Steve Jobs loves himself more than his mother does.
2. Steve loves his products more than his customers do.
3. Steve is the first to cry fowl when someone copies off of something that was thought of in Cuppertino.
4. Steve makes sure his company copies only the best of his compition, but unlike his competition, he calls all of it his innovation and doesn’t give credit where it’s due. (A sign of lack of character)
5. The iPhone is great (bother companies iPhones actually) but Steve fails to admit that 95 percent of the innovation that went into it was done outside of apple. Most of it from Redmond as well as Palm and HTC and all those other great companies who have hard working employees as well. (their bosses don’t yell at them like children after working 90 hours like Steve Jobs does)
6.Apple is the only company that doesn’t get grilled in today’s collaborative “Web 2.0″ world for not opening up and–Christ–even Microsoft designs sites that work in Firefox. I suggest we all start forcing apple to live up to the same standards as everyone else.

At some point, I must separate myself from the Oooh Ahhh Niicce I think I’m cool because I wear an apple logo on my minivan crowd and take a stand against Apple. I will not support a company that acts like this any longer and I will continue to see people through a filter when they say things like Steve Jobs is great or something close to that.

@14. It was never “Apple Computers.” It was “Apple Computer” (singular). I wonder if seeing people add that alien “s” again and again didn’t help drive the decision to drop “Computer” from the corporate name.

Afterthought: Now that Microsoft is doing more and more hardware, will they consider a corporate name change as well?

Michael…are you suggesting Microhard?
I know I said the same thing yesterday

Steve Jobs is the serpent Take a bite and you’ve sold your soul.
Resist that temptation or you’ll be banished from the garden of electronics.

We’ve seen this happen before (recently)… Apple v. Creative. THAT resulted in a hefty one-time sum being paid by Apple to Creative. We’ll see it again and Apple doesn’t seem to mind writing that particular check. Big deal.

Go APPLE iPhone! (just grow up quickly please I need storage, battery and other network options)

@18. a name change to what? It’s always been Microsoft Corporation.

Cisco should partner with another cell phone maker and release an iPhone before June. That’s the way I would do it. Slap an iPhone sticker on one of the cool Asian phones (or all of them for that matter) just to rub it in Apple’s face.

Cisco guy definitely knows how to blog effectively-really well done.

And Robert, make sure you snapshot this Techmeme moment and remember it next time you think Apple only gets fawning press and a “pass” on everything-its obvious both their successes AND flaws get magnified by the press/bloggers, something that competitors tend to gloss over.

Give it a rest already with the “bloghaus”. Maybe http://www.bloghaus.net should sue you.

Reports are surfacing that Cisco is filtering the comments on that blog post. Filtering out contraian (pro Apple) views. If true, makes it a PR stunt rather than a blog post discussion. What do other think?

I intended to type comment above not content

PXLated – Its useless to filter content on a blog. The conversation will carry one elsewhere.
Maybe they are just deleting obscene comments.