Consumer device popularity spells doom for enterprise tablet

In a blog post this week, Cisco revealed that the company will no longer be producing the Cius. The enterprise-focused tablet was released last year but never caught on with business consumers, who are increasingly opting for Apple's iPad, and other competitors to a lesser extent, as a mobile computing solution.

Cisco points to the growing prevalence of BYOD, or "Bring Your Own Device" to work, in the enterprise sector as a primary driver of the decision to drop the Cius. A recent survey by the company found that 95 percent of organizations allowed employee-owned devices in the workplace, and 36 percent provided full support for these devices. Thus, Cisco found itself putting an enterprise-oriented niche tablet up against consumer-oriented but enterprise-capable iPads and other offerings.

Following the release of the tablet in April of last year, Cisco quickly rolled out an enterprise app platform for the Cius, which is also capable of running Android apps. As late as November of last year, the company was promising successors to the Cius, as well as an upgrade to Android 4.0. Still, the device languished, with Cisco unable to parlay its cachet in the enterprise sector into comparable success with its tablet.

The enterprise solutions company has had mixed fortunes this past few months, killing off its Umi video chat and Flip camera segments due to competition from lower-priced competitors and convergence devices. In the wake the Cius' demise, Cisco intends to redirect its efforts toward collaborative software offerings such as Jabber and WebEx.

By Electronista Staff

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