While most of the media (including ourselves, admittedly) was agog over the announcement of the phone, reaction to it from the tech punditry was a little less positive. While some did see it as a "game changing" device, others lamented the high price, and others were unhappy with the lack of 3G or exclusivity through Cingular. We've included a sampling of their comments below.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts on the iPhone below this article.

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In his keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Tuesday, Dell Chairman and founder Michael Dell said that "customer imagination" would be the most important driver for innovation during the year.

Dell also used the platform of the keynote to introduce several new products, including a new XPS desktop gaming system, new flat-panel monitors, and a home media suite. He said that direct consumer feedback would also influence the company's moves going forward.

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A representative of Cisco Systems, which acquired the iPhone trademark by way of its Linksys division having acquired Infogear in 2000, told BetaNews this afternoon that it is offering to license its trademark for Apple's use, and has drawn up papers to that end.

"Given Apple's numerous requests to use the iPhone trademark, and extensive discussions with them," the representative told BetaNews, "it is our belief that with their announcement today, Apple intends to agree to the final documents and public statements that were distributed to them last night, and that addressed the last few remaining items. We expect to receive a signed agreement today."

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Microsoft said Tuesday that it is committed to shipping the newest version of Office for Mac OS X, however still up in the air is a release date: the company only said it would be available "in the second half of 2007."

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac would be the first version of the productivity suite that willbe a Universal Binary, compatible with both the PowerPC and Intel platforms. Enhancements planned include support for Microsoft's Open XML document format, as well as improvements based on "extensive customer research."

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AT MACWORLD Reflecting Apple's movement away from just being a provider of computers, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company would be removing the "Computer" from its company name and would now be known simply as Apple, Inc. The name change would be the first such move since the company was founded some 30 years ago.

During the keynote, Jobs referred back to a quote by hockey great Wayne Gretzky as its reasoning for the change of colors: "I skate to where the puck is going to be not where it has been." While thanking his family for their hard work on the new products, Jobs reportedly choked up and had to pause for a brief moment, eliciting cheers of support from the audience.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that YouTube is considering moving into the offline world by offering videos on television. Additionally, the company is working on a system that would allow content owners to better control their content by either blocking it, or charging for it if they so desire.

One begins to wonder how much of this most recent initiative is being pushed for by Google, who purchased the site in October of last year for $1.65 billion. With such a large investment, you have to think the search giant is looking for other ways to generate revenue.

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AT MACWORLD In his keynote address at Macworld in San Francisco Tuesday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the oft-rumored and much-anticipated iPhone, although the device is somewhat different than what had been expected.

Instead of launching a separate widescreen ipod and iPhone, Apple has combined three different devices into a single one. The iPhone is a widescreen iPod, cellular phone, and Internet communicator in one device, and would be a true smartphone according to Jobs.

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AT MACWORLD Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the lid off of its "iTV" project, renaming it Apple TV. Being billed as a "way to enjoy your media on a bigscreen TV," the unit would feature 720p HD video, a 40 GB hard drive, and component and RCA hookups.

Inside, the feature set is impressive: 802.11 b/g/n wireless connectivity, USB 2.0 inputs, and HDMI connections. The unit would run on a Intel CPU and allow auto-synchronization from one PC, although content could be streamed from up to five machines. The synchronization process would act much like the iPod does, Jobs said.

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AT MACWORLD - Starting off his yearly keynote at MacWorld 2007 in San Francisco, Steve Jobs said "we're going to make history." Indeed the company has -- with Jobs noting nearly half of the new Macs sold at retail have been to new Macintosh customers.

First, Jobs first hit on iTunes, which has just recently surpassed the two billion song mark, as well as surpassing Amazon to become the fifth largest retailer. On the television show side, 50 million have been sold, with 350 different shows available.

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Sirius' recent successes are working to the benefit of shock jock Howard Stern. The satellite radio provider said on Tuesday that it had awarded him 22.1 million shares, valued at $82.9 million. The award of stock comes after the company again surpassed pre-Stern subscriber targets, a requirement for the awarding of stock as per his contract. Before Stern, the company had only projected 3.5 million subscribers by the end of last year. They finished the year with over six million.

Since the signing of Stern, Sirius's growth has been explosive, growing from just 600,000 subscribers. In 2005, shortly before he came on the air, he and his agent Don Buchwald were awarded 34.4 million shares for exceeding guidance at the end of that year. The targets have not been made public.

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Vonage has struck an agreement with EarthLink, which would allow it to resell the company's wireless Internet service in cities where the ISP controls the Wi-Fi network. Broadband service would then be sold under the Vonage name, the company said Monday.

Internet service would be bundled with Vonage's traditional business, VoIP. No launch date has been set for the new service, or what price it would sell at. However, it indicates a willingness by the company to expand its business outward to continue growth.

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An aggressive plan to roll out broadband Internet access service for rural areas of Idaho was apparently killed today, as evidenced by a lack of appropriation or mention of the project in the state's new governor's State of the State address this afternoon.

Some of us in Idaho were particularly disappointed to listen to new Governor Butch Otter's State of the State speech today, in which he laid out his proposed budget for the upcoming legislative session. Last year, the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor received $5 million in one-time funding, which brought broadband Internet to 73 new communities.

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A consumer-oriented trade show is perhaps an awkward place for a CPU manufacturer to be releasing a server processor set, but Intel may be using its server performance jump as a leveraging point to push its Q6600, its entry-level 2.4 GHz quad-core processor.

The quad-core Xeon 3200 series targets single-processor servers, with the notion that today’s 1P server could be as powerful as yesterday’s 4Ps – or, more realistically, a “2.5P.” The 2.4 GHz X3220 will sell for $851 to vendors purchasing in units of 1000, while the 2.13 GHz X3110 will sell for $690. There currently is no 2.13 GHz consumer-grade counterpart in Intel’s quad-core line. Using today’s CES news cycle, Intel was able to get these figures out to far more potential customers than for almost any other time of the year.

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Aiming to take on both Microsoft and Apple head on, Real on Monday announced several new deals to expand Rhapsody's presence in the music industry. Deals with Nokia, Reigncom (maker of the iRiver), and TiVo were some of the companies that announced support for the Rhapsody DNA platform. With Microsoft apparently abandoning PlaysForSure for the Zune, it appears that Real is stepping in to fill that void.

Nokia would support the service in its next-generation Internet Tablet, while Reigncom would produce several versions of the iRiver MP3 player compatible with Rhapsody. Also planned is the capability to play Rhapsody content through the TiVo set-top box, expected later this year. "Our vision for Rhapsody is to deliver seamless and personalized access to millions of songs, on-demand and from any device," music and video senior vice president Dan Sheeran said.

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Following its December 2005 purchase of Maxtor, Seagate is setting out to differentiate the two brands to attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas. Its Maxtor line would focus on storage and backup needs, while Seagate drives will focus on data mobility.

Even before the acquisition, Maxtor focused on data backup applications. In 2001, the company was responsible for creating one of the first one-touch backup systems for consumers. Through a new consumer campaign, Seagate plans to show off those strengths.

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