Cisco Plans Business Tablet for Mobile Collaboration

Cisco is building a business tablet called Cius based on Android that integrates with Cisco's collaboration and communications applications. With HD video streaming and multiparty conferencing, Cisco's Cius tablet is aimed at businesses and students. Cisco's Tony Bates said Cius will also lower IT costs per user for collaboration.
Cisco, apparently wondering why consumers should have all the tablet fun, announced on Tuesday a "mobile Relevant Products/Services collaboration Relevant Products/Services business tablet." The new device, called Cius (pronounced "see-us"), is based on Google's open-source Android operating system Relevant Products/Services and provides virtual desktop Relevant Products/Services integration Relevant Products/Services with Cisco's collaboration and communications Relevant Products/Services applications.

The tablet weighs in at 1.15 lbs, and supports HD video Relevant Products/Services streaming, multiparty conferencing, e-mail, messaging, browsing and applications for creating, editing and sharing content in a local network Relevant Products/Services or through the cloud Relevant Products/Services. An optional HD audio station has a speakerphone, HD DisplayPort and USB ports, and, for audio conferences, there are dual noise-canceling microphones. Connectivity includes 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-FI and 3G, with 4G available later.

Health Care, Retailers, Students

There's also a 720p front-mounted HD camera and a five-megapixel camera on back, a seven-inch-high super VGA touchscreen, and a detachable eight-hour battery. As with an increasing number of mobile devices, an accelerometer allows the display to orient in either a portrait or landscape mode as the user turns the device.

Tony Bates, Cisco senior vice president and general manager of enterprise, commercial and small business, noted the wide range of uses and users Cisco has in mind for its new product line. He said the Cius "can transform how health-care professional advance patient care, how retailers deliver service Relevant Products/Services experiences to consumers, or how universities deliver world-class education to their students."

While the tablet is being directed at businesses, the student market is growing and Cisco's emphasis on communication and collaboration could appeal to that market as well.

"Best of all," Bates said, the Cius allows IT Relevant Products/Services departments a way to "dramatically lower the cost per user of provisioning those new experiences."

Third-Party Apps

The Cius will support Relevant Products/Services a wide range of Cisco collaboration applications, including the social-collaboration business platform Quad, the Show and Share "social video system," WebEx Connect, WebEx Meeting Center, and Presence, and it will interoperate with TelePresence, whose functions can be operated through a single button. According to the company, the device can easily be integrated into existing Cisco environments, including AnyConnect VPN Relevant Products/Services Security.

With virtual desktop integration, IT departments can host apps in the data Relevant Products/Services center and deliver them to the Cius as an "anytime, anywhere" service, which the company cited as one of the ways in which the new tablet can help consolidate resources and reduce software licensing costs.

Perhaps most importantly for the long-term health of Android-based tablets for business, Cisco is touting the growing number of business-class, third-party applications for this operating system. To help that effort, the company is offering Cisco Collaboration Application Protocol Interfaces, or APIs, through a software developers kit.

The tablet is expected to be released for customer Relevant Products/Services trials in the third quarter, and to be available in the first quarter of next year. The company has not announced prices.