InfoGear Technology Corporation was an American information technology company founded in 1995. In 1998, it introduced the iPhone internet appliance. The company was acquired in 2000 by

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

Company history

The company's history can be divided into four distinct phases: Phase 1 – May 1995 – The original iPhone product concept was developed as part of an internal innovation project at

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...

– code named Project Mercury. Bob Ackerman, a strategy and technology consultant working with National Semiconductors’ Demetris Paraskevopoulos, first discovered the project in National's labs. Ackerman worked with his colleague Jeff Oscodar and the National team to spin the project out into a start-up company in 1995. Phase 2 – 1995 - 1996 (Bob Marshall, CEO) - The company worked in partnership with CIDCO systems to introduce the first iPhone (CIDCO iPhone). Phase 3 – 1997 – 2000 (Ed Cluss, CEO) - The company bought the iPhone II intellectual property from CIDCO and introduced the iPhone to the consumer market. It also explored the "J-Phone" concept, and ported InfoGear Networks to GSM mobile phones (code named Ducati). Phase 4 - 2000 – Present – InfoGear was acquired by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

on March 16, 2000. Cisco operated the InfoGear Network until later shutting it down.

Products

iPhone

InfoGear had offices in California and an R&D center in Israel. InfoGear developed a line of Internet appliances, of which the best known was the

Linksys iPhone The iPhone is a discontinued internet appliance line introduced by Infogear in 1998 and between 2000 and 2007 manufactured by Cisco. It combined the features of a regular phone and a web terminal. The company was later purchased by Cisco and no ...

, an Internet screenphone. The first-generation iPhone shipped in 1997 and the second in 1999. It was ultimately distributed in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. The iPhone trademark was developed and owned by InfoGear. White iPhone 1

InfoGear Network

The Info Gear Network provided user-relevant information and services in conjunction with

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

, content and service partners.

References

External links

* Cisco acquisitions Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies {{ict-company-stub