Business

The Cisco CEO called the lawsuit with Apple over the trademarked “iPhone” name a “minor skirmish” that could have been avoided if they had negotiated early as discussed.

In my opinion, this isn’t just a minor skirmish, it is a BFD. It’s not like Apple came up with a unique name and some mom and pop came out of the woodwork to claim the name. This is Cisco! Any basic desktop search would have pulled up Cisco’s trademark. This is an example of Steve and Co. brazenly claiming something unclaimable and then trying to muscle its way into it.

“All we ask is that people respect our trademarks and our intellectual property,” he told the paper. “We would have traded that for just interoperability,” or the ability of the Apple phone to work smoothly with Cisco products.”

See, that’s just it. Apple doesn’t want interoperability. It’s not a criticism, past decisions prove it be a point.
[Via Reuters]

The success of the iPhone can mean the downfall of Apple in the computer business. Make sense? My colleague, Chris Seibold at Apple Matters seems to think so. In his article today, “iPhone and the Mac’s Slow Slog Towards iDeath”, Seibold says, “...the better the iPhone does, the worse the news is for the Mac. If Apple hits its sales targets for the iPhone, the profit derived from the Mac segment will be roughly equal to the iPhone segment.”

That is a scary thought for those of us who love the complete Apple lineup. The name has already lost the “computer”, is the product lineup next? Do you think the success of the iPhone could mean the end of Apple computers?
[Via Apple Matters]

Straight from the jury room of Silicon.com’s CIO Jury, we have some good cases for every reason why the iPhone won’t be good for business. Although some of the 12 person jury said they dug the iphone, these guys are paid to be practical, not lustful. Liek this nugget:

Ken Davis, IT director at TV channel Five, said: “It’s an interesting toy from a personal viewpoint’ however from a corporate perspective it would need to prove its hardware reliability and software compatibility with Exchange and other corporate communication systems before we would consider making it part of our portfolio of supported devices.”

What do you think about the iPhone in the workplace?
[Via ZDNet India]

Anyone who knows anything about apple knows that as soon as a product is released the copiers begin. And not just the ones in Redmond that copy Vista, but actual clones of Apple products. Some examples are the Luxpro Shuffle clone, I think litigation is still going on on that one. Then there was the infamous iMac clone and there are many other examples as well.

It is somewhat inevitable then, that companies are probably working away on their own version of the iPhone. The weird thing here is because the iPhone has been a pre-annoucement, that someone could actually get their version of the iPhone to market before the real deal ships. Weird.

Christopher Null writes over at Yahoo tech about a device I had never heard about until now called the MyOrigo (unfortunate name, btw) that has been around since 2003. Null goes on to point out the the MyOrigo can do many of the things the iPhone can do (such as landscape and portrait switching). Check out a video of the device with an “iPod-like” interface above.

Where… more...

So picture yourself as someone with a lot to gain by the success of the Blackberry Pearl, the first phone by Research in Motion aimed at the consumer market. Got a good picture? Are you all giddy inside? Or maybe you took the missus out for a steak dinner to celebrate? Of course you did because the Blackberry Pearl is gorgeous, functional, reasonably priced, and functions within the existing workplace culture.

But Needham’s John Lynch and Charlie Wolf said yesterday that Apple’s iPhone may put a little drizzle in RIM’s parade. They dropped RIM’s rating from Buy to Hold. Before you start freaking out, realize that this does not mean impending doom for RIMM nor does it mean phenomenal success for Apple. It is simply a thought that the iPhone may affect the huge projected success of RIM.

[Via Seeking Alpha]

Apple is hoping to do in Europe what they are doing here in the states as they look for a single phone provider to cover all of their European markets. The top contenders are Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodaphone.
[Via vnunet]

Some people suspect that the revolutionary technology in the button-less iPhone was made possible by the innovations of two University of Delaware researchers. John Elias and Wayne Westerman developed products that required no contact to work. “A FingerWorks keyboard senses the motion of fingers in the air, allowing users to “cut and paste” or zoom in and out with such simple gestures as “pinching” or “closing the lid of a jar.”

Although they have not confirmed their involvement, the iPhone apparently draws from that same technology and the fact that Apple purchased FingerWorks and both researchers went to work at Apple shortly thereafter only adds to the speculation.

This article suggests that this technology could “revolutionize gadget control”. Although this article is an interesting read, the most intriguing is one of the comments:

Posted by: ivanw- Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:44 am
Thanks Eric for giving more credit to the “true” story of MultiTouch real life and potential. What Apple claims to get all the merit always comes from some individuals kept in the dark. This time,… more...

An interesting article from Bloomberg News via STLtoday. In it, the writer Matthew Lynn offers up 3 reasons why “Apple is unlikely to make much of an impact on [the mobile] market.”

He cites, that Apple is late to the party, and that they need cooperation from more providers. But the most interesting point he makes is the notion that Apple released the iPhone as a defensive product. One in which they are trying to maintain their hold on the iPod market and may be threatened by the increase music capabilities with today’s phones.

This is the first time, I have heard of this argument and I am intrigued. I am not fully convinced that people want to combine phone functionality with their music. Email? Sure. Instant messaging? Of course. But music and video may be a different story.

Here are 3 clues that lead me to believe Apple isn’t releasing the iPhone as a defensive product:
1. Only 8GB capacity - Are you serious? I haven’t had… more...

That’s according to a poll run over at Silicon.com which asked its users whether or not they would be planning to buy an iPhone. Whilst 60% of readers shared no interest in purchasing the phone, 35% did with the remainder still not really sure what an iPhone is or what it does.

One thing Silicon.com aren’t mentioning is how many users voted - it would be no good if only 100 people voted and only 35 of them were interested in buying the phone as it doesn’t say a lot for Apple’s market share. Anyway, at least it’s good to see the enthusiasm there.

Actually, speaking of market share, Tim Ferguson, who wrote the article, says that it would be interesting if Apple did actually conquer 35% market share as it would literally be Apple competing head on with the likes of Nokia - his writing on this is a little misleading. Just because 35% of users voted toward buying the iPhone, doesn’t mean that Apple will gain 35% market share. 1% market share in the mobile phone industry is roughly 10 million units of a given device by one company. Apple would have to… more...

You may be a diehard Apple fan or a lover of whatever the gadget of the moment is. In other words, the iPhone could have been listed at $1000 and you would still be psyched to get your tech-loving mitts on it. But if that is you, you are but a small drop in the big bucket of targeted iPhone buyers that Apple and Cingular hope to nab in June.

Compete.com has leveraged their network and has come up with some interesting insights about consumer acceptance and readiness of the iPhone.

There is no denying that people want the iPhone. But are people ready to pay over $400 for a phone? Among the trends, compiled by Compete.com, is the result that “Even among the diehard segment of iPod shoppers who said they are very likely to buy an iPhone, only 6% said they would pay over $400.” The article later notes, that the sweetspot for phones these days seems to be around the $200 range.

What do you think? In June, when your lust and your wallet clash, who will win?… more...