It seems sense prevailed at Cisco, with a messy legal war in neither party’s interest. Apple was effectively saying ‘bring it on’, and even if legal battles continued, Cisco would have had to fight against the stark reality that the term iPhone has been used to describe any upcoming Apple phone for years, leading to much more consumer recognition of the Apple iPhone no matter where legal misadventures would have landed.

As the rest of terms of the agreement are confidential, we can only speculate on what kind of co-operation will come down the track, there a few ways Apple and Cisco could work together, beyond Cisco hoping that some of Apple’s magic dust might fall Cisco’s way.

One possibility could easily involve some kind of integration with Cisco’s existing software and hardware VoIP platform, receiving calls on Apple’s iPhone – despite the Linksys iPhone that Cisco would no doubt prefer its customers buy.

Apple and Cisco could work together on IPTV, with Cisco having strong interests in the area, having purchased a set-top box maker and the intelligent KiSS digital media recorder, as well as having invaluable networking insights that could be helpful to Apple as its digital media business starts expanding exponentially.

No-one but Apple and Cisco really know how serious their statement actually is – it seems inevitable that any co-operation will be as large or as small as Apple desires. The only thing we do know for sure is that we can bow our hats to Steve Jobs once again as the 'reality distortion effect' ensures Jobs gets his way!
{moscomment}

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