Cisco stops developing Cius Android tablet

Cisco are off the tablets
Source: Cisco Cisco has announced that it will no longer be investing in developing its Android-based Cius tablet. The device, announced in June 2010, ran Android 2.2.2 on an Intel Atom processor and had a 7" display; it was billed as a "Mobile Collaboration Endpoint" and worked with Cisco's Unified Communications system, Cisco WebEx, and Cisco Jabber, and had its own application store, Cisco AppHQ. At the start of the year, the company announced it was working on larger and smaller versions of the $750 tablet, but no modified devices arrived.

The device was, says Cisco's OJ Winge, Senior Vice President for the Telepresence Technology Group, overtaken in the eyes of the market by the "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Device) trend within corporations, which sees employees using their own hardware to plug into a company's communications infrastructure. Cisco now says it "will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what’s available today", though it will offer the Cius to customers with "specific needs". The company says it intends to focus on software such as Jabber and WebEx, and learning from the Cius experience.

(djwm)