Wednesday, the that they would both use the iPhone name on their products. They also pledged to "explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security and consumer and enterprise communications," according to a joint statement issued Wednesday night.

Cisco, in a lawsuit filed in federal court last month, claimed the iPhone trademark via a 2000 acquisition of Infogear. The San Jose, Calif., company has sold a line of Linksys VoIP devices label for over a year.

As part of the settlement, all legal action on both sides has been dismissed, but the rest of the arrangement's details remain confidential.

That didn't stop analysts familiar with Apple, Cisco and the iPhone brouhaha from speculating on who won and, more important, who lost at the negotiation table.

"The rule in Silicon Valley is that if Apple leaves the table smiling, the other guy got screwed," said Rob Enderle, an independent analyst and principal of the Enderle Group. "And Apple left the table smiling on this one."