Cisco to discontinue its Android-powered Cius tablet

Cisco is announcing that it will be shutting down its Android-based Cius tablet project. OJ Winge, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s TelePresence Technology Group, said that the company will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet and that no further enhancements will be made to it. The Cius tablet was first revealed in 2010 as a business tablet running on Android OS. Last year, the company announced that the tablet will be arriving on Verizon’s network but clearly it wasn’t doing so well.

Winge said that findings from the Cisco IBSG Horizons Study on virtualization and BYOD  shows that 95% of organizations surveyed allow employee-owned devices in some way, and 36% of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices. “Based on these market transitions, Cisco 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,” Winge said.

Albeit we might not be seeing any more of Cisco’s tablet around, Winge said that the company will continue to offer the tablet in a limited way, particularly to customers with specific needs. Of course, Cisco’s decision to discontinue the Cius tablet isn’t shocking. After all, there are other options, most of them are even better and cheaper.

Gene Ryan Briones
Categories: Tablets
Tags: Cisco