It was nice to see Apple unveil its new phone and other cool products earlier this week at MacWorld. I admire the way Apple brought itself back from near extinction to become one of the coolest tech firm. However, it was surprising to find out that the firm knew that "iPhone" was a trademark of Cisco but did not finalize the rights to use of the name with Cisco prior to announcing the launch of the product at MacWorld. Now that Apple has announced the launch of product, Cisco has more leverage to extract greater amount of money from Apple, if indeed it is willing to sell such rights.
What surprised me is that a firm like Apple has so many creative and talented people working for it, yet the firm did not think of devising a new name for the new product on its own rather than trying to buy the rights for the name from Cisco. Apple could have easily relied on its creative employees and partners to come up with a cool name, or it could have launched a marketing contest to seek out name for its new product from the public in return for a token award. Not only such an effort would have cost the company pennies compared to the amount it would have to pay Cisco to get the rights, but it would also have spared the company from facing Cisco's lawsuit, while also reinforcing its creativity. Cool firms like Apple need to rely on their ingenuity and realize that it pays to think outside the ibox.
For related links, see:
CNET News.com
Jason D. O'Grady's Apple Blog
Note: iPhone is a trademark of Cisco Systems.
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