Somewhat OT: you're a marketing guy whom I've come to respect a lot, so I'll pose this question to you. Am I crazy to think that Cisco's clinging to the "iPhone" name invites a visual side-by-side comparison of the devices, making Cisco look very 20th century. Something decidedly ungood for the Linksys and Cisco brands? (And very counter to their corporate branding campaign.)
However the legalities shake out, when people in meetings at CES on Tuesday whispered "iPhone" to each other, there wasn't any doubt about which iPhone. Whatever the legalities, the public granted the iPhone moniker to Apple long before they used it. Doesn't Cisco hurt its brand by invoking the inevitable comparison? Is this really the press Cisco wants?
Or has my sense of marketing and branding gone off a cliff? They are getting their name spelled right.
I think you have an excellent point here. Cisco is fighting a losing battle for the trademark. But some of the news stores I've seen say that Cisco isn't looking for exclusive use of the trademark, but simply a guarantee that Apple will make their phone work with Cisco's gear too. That might be worth fighting for.
As you note, Cisco has certainly gotten some good press out of this, so it may have been worth the gamble, even if they lose. And my guess is that it will never go to court; this is one of those lawsuits just designed to get the two companies to negotiate more.
Thanks for the thought!
Carl
Re Linksys: Cisco might be better served by making routers that don't suck than by pursuing frivolous and ultimately unpopular lawsuits.
Commenting by HaloScan
