Roger Kay, of Endpoint Technologies Associates, agreed. "It certainly looks like Cisco gave away the store."

Both Enderle and Kay said their take was based on the clear value of the iPhone name, and the vague interoperability promises made in the statement. "I'm not convinced that Cisco got what it wanted out of this," said Enderle. In the past, he added, Apple has made promises to partners that it didn't keep. "That's been a history of deals with Apple. The partner always regrets it."

Kay, on the other hand, assumed that some money must have changed hands. The direction: from Apple to Cisco. "It would be very odd if there wasn't some money exchanged, because Apple gets almost everything." Kay said the iPhone name could be worth as much as a "couple of hundred million."

Cisco declined to comment on the record beyond the official joint statement; Apple did not return a call for comment.

Neither Enderle nor Kay was surprised that a deal was struck. "Apple couldn't afford to go to court," said Enderle. Apple had argued publicly that its cell-phone-based iPhone was different enough from Cisco's VoIP iPhone to justify using the trademark. If that reasoning had won out, Apple would have opened itself up to similar justifications from rivals. "Others could have used the same argument with the iPod," Enderle said.