"We would have traded that for just interoperability, or the ability of the Apple phone to work smoothly with Cisco products."

They could start by having Linksys officially support the Mac platform. Their products work with Macs but they don't offer official support or configuration software.

Their products work with Macs but they don't offer official support or configuration software.

I always considered the lack of configuration software a plus, not a negative. Who wants to run software that does who knows what to your computer (like on the windows side!).

You mean like not having to hardwire a PC to a linsys router to get it running? That sort? We're waiting...

To address his apparent concern, though - they're assuming this thing will do VOIP, which it does not yet.

Other that that, why woud a cell phone / 802.x standards-compliant appliance need to worry about which router is upstream of it?

This seems all bluster on Cisco's part. Apple's lawyers must have either been willing to back-burner this for the sake of getting the keynote done, or discovered something that will make this a much easier case.

Chambers better hope it is only a minor skirmish. There is some evidence to suggest the possibility that Cisco may have run afoul of Federal statutes in this little dust up. They may lose a lot more then a trademark.

Doesn't the iPhone do VIOP transparently behind the scenes? I read that a call would automatically and transparently be switched from the Cingular network to an AirPort/802.whatever network when one became available. So I would start a call on Cingular in the car but end it as a VOIP call at home. Or did I just imagine/misunderstand this feature?

I fundamentally disagree with John Chambers. While I support trademark law, Cisco had not used the iPhone name at all and was merely abusing trademark law to reserve "iPhone" such that the company could force compliance or concessions from another party who actually did the work toward creating, producing and making available for sale an iPhone product.

If there's any evidence of trademark violation going on here, it's Cisco's blatant abuse of the protective spirit of trademark law.

Shame on you, Cisco.

As i understand it the iPhone only uses WIFI for internet connection. It automatically switches from WAP (or whatever) to WIFI when in range of a wireless gateway.

I wonder what he means by interoperability. I never understood what he meant by that. What exactly would apple have to change to satisfy this requirement?

Chambers better hope it is only a minor skirmish. There is some evidence to suggest the possibility that Cisco may have run afoul of Federal statutes in this little dust up. They may lose a lot more then a trademark.

So you're now saying they've commited a federal offense over this? Exactly what statutes have they run afoul of?

thinking the whole world is out to get them. If the position were reversed, Mac users would still be all over Cisco's case. Apple could have done something far more serious and Mac users would still think Apple is beyond error. Some days, I am ashamed to be a Mac user. I wish the die-hard Mac users could be objective for once in their lives.

Got my Nomex on, so flame away.