Cisco has revealed plans to discontinue its Android tablet development, despite the growing ‘bring your own device’ trend emerging in businesses worldwide.
One of the world’s largest networking companies, Cisco has announced there will be no further investment in the device, which has been worked on for the past two years.
"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," said Cisco’s senior vice president OJ Winge.
"However, as we evaluate the market further, we will continue to offer Cius in a limited fashion to customers with specific needs or use cases."
Cius was always a tough proposition for the company, with a price tag nearly double the iPads (starting at around £650), with limited functionality. Cisco has already admitted that the device wasn’t a success.
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), where employees are bringing their own devices to work, means that they aren’t looking for an enterprise developed tablet – more that they want their existing iPad or Android tablet to fit in with the workplace. Cisco said that nearly 36% of enterprises surveyed were already providing full support for employee-owned devices, and 95% of organisations surveyed allowed employee-owned devices into the office in some way – effectively rendering the Cius irrelevant.
Winge told media that the company would move its focus away from hard ware and concentrate on software offerings, like Jabber and WebEx, by leveraging its Cius experiences in other collaborative products.
