Linksys beats Apple to the iPhone

The new wireless iPhone range of VoIP phones and accessories launched by Linksys will allow people to make free or low-cost calls using the Skype service. Cisco, which owns Linksys has beaten Apple in the race for coming up with an “iPhone”. What is really surprising is that Apple did not actually own the rights to the brand name “iPhone”, Cisco does and it had registered the name as far back as 1996. It’s ironic that the company which has registered the trademarks for iPod, iTunes, iChat, iMac etc should lose out on the iconic “i” branding. The Linksys iPhone is available at $180, which is basically a phone for Skype users and at $200 which allows landline calls as well. It will be competing with similar phones from Belkin and Netgear who have stolen the march on Linksys, beating them to the market and cashing in on the lucrative Christmas shopping season.

It will be interesting to see what Apple chooses to call its music-enabled mobile device that it will most probably release in January 2007 at MacWorld. Apple is rumored to be on the threshold of entering the mobile market and may be about to release a Wi-Fi device that does not use traditional mobile networks but relies on VoIP. Other rumors are circulating from reputable sources that the new Apple phone will work with 2G networks while others believe it will be a 3G. The jury is still out.

I do not believe Linksys would be allowed to release a product using the iPhone name if Apple were planning on using it for their own product, their corporate legal team is among the best in the business and are not to be messed with. Personally I think that Apple will name the phone the MacPhone or something similar. Don’t forget that they recently changed the iBook and PowerBook to the MacBook and MacBook Pro recently because Steve Jobs wanted to consolidate their naming scheme around the Mac.

We’ll find out soon enough I guess.