While I can see the logic behind Chinese group Huawei snapping up troubled Marconi for what could be a bargain price of about $1 billion, the idea of Cisco buying Nokia seems incredulous.

The rather off-beat British newspaper Sunday Business got the rumor mill going suggesting Cisco is keen on another of its major acquisitions, and is eyeing either the whole, or more realistically the wireless infrastructure group of the Finnish company.

Of course we have been here before. The rumor mill that is the 3GSM Congress in Nice, France back in February had such a deal near the top of the list. Of course nothing came of it, and it was put down to too much alcohol consumed on some of the yachts in the harbor. (It certainly could not have been too much sun –as there was little of it this February).

While the two companies certainly have a good rapport and collaborate on a number of projects, notably sharing information on VoIP developments, it would still seem an acquisition too far for Cisco. Even a merger of their network infrastructure business seems fanciful at this stage.

Perhaps it was the impending departure of Jorma Ollila that got the folks at the British Sunday thinking of how the new CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, could make a splash entrance.

And yet ----the news sent Nokia shares up 3 percent Monday (Aug. 3) morning on suggestions of the deal.

And yet --- Nokia’s main forte is mobile phones, and that is the business Kallasvuo knows best. He is currently in charge of the handheld operation. The wireless infrastructure group, while important for some synergies to that business, especially in 3G and HSDPA developments, has rarely been that profitable. But is it strategic?

Cisco is pushing hard to do more business with wireless operators, and this is helped by the industry’s current love affair with the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) phenomenon. Both companies are pushing hard their IMS wares. Indeed this is another area where the two have been working towards common solutions for building backbone networks.

I did not believe, nor even report on the rumors doing the rounds in February, and I doubt their validity now. And yet – there have been stranger deals in this strange mobile communications industry!