Cisco Pulls Investment in Cius Tablet
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In part due to the rising popularity of “bring your own device” work environments, Cisco will no longer invest in its Cius tablet, according to a company blog published May 24.
Cius was launched July 31, 2011, as a “collaboration device for the enterprise.” It features a 7-inch touch-sensitive tablet, enabling unified communications from any location with an IP or Wi-Fi connection.
In his blog, OJ Winge, senior vice president of Cisco’s TelePresence Technology Group, wrote that “no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond whats available today.” However, he added that Cisco “will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases.”
Instead, Winge said Cisco will “double down” on software offerings, like Jabber and WebEx, which work across a variety of operating systems, tablets and smartphones.
Winge also referred to Cisco’s support for what it calls the Unified Workspace, which it announced at the April Cisco Partner Summit. The Unified Workspace is not a product as much as it is a framework or collection of Cisco technologies including its virtual desktop, BYOD and intelligent network solutions.
“Cisco is committed to delivering a new collaborative workspace that meets our customers needs and empowers users to work their way anytime, anywhere and on any device,” Winge wrote in his blog.
Also at the Cisco Partner Summit, Cisco announced free Jabber IM to Cisco UC customers, an entree for VARs selling Cisco technology as a way to tie multivendor environments together.
