Apple and Cisco have announced that they have reached an agreement regarding branding issues surrounding Apple's newly announced iPhone and Cisco's VoIP. Under the agreement the two companies will be sharing the iPhone name. The agreement also allows Apple to avoid a court battle with Cisco over the trademark, iPhone.

While this out of court settlement does not pay Cisco any monetary funds, it does guarantee that Apple will allow opportunities for interoperability between its coming iPhone and Cisco's Internet iPhone in areas of security, consumer and enterprise communication.

With Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, bolding predicting that over 10 million Apple iPhone's will be sold in 2008, many of speculated that Cisco has really all along just wanted a piece of the pie rather than force Apple to rebrand its phone or try to stop its release all together. By allowing the Apple iPhone to work in some way with Cisco's products, Cisco's products are sure to gain much more world wide attention then previously expected.

While Apple still faces another law suit from a Canadian company over its right to sell a web-based phone service under the same name, Apple is sure to benefit from having the Cisco court battle in its rear view mirror.

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