Cisco all but kills Cius tablet computer

The Android-based collaboration tool, which featured a 7-inch touchscreen and was not intended to challenge more consumer-oriented tablets just as the Apple iPad, fell victim to the BYOD trend and cloud computing, Cisco said in a blog post.

The post, authored by OJ Winge, senior vice president of Cisco's TelePresence Research Group, states that Cisco will discontinue investment and development of the tablet, which we reviewed in February.

Cisco will instead "double down" on software offerings like its Jabber and WebEx products for more popular tablets and smartphones supporting a variety of operating systems, the blog states. Cisco unveiled a version of Jabber for the iPad at the Enterprise Connect conference before this year.

According to Network World's Cius review, the tablet was only available through the Cisco partner network. It cost less than $750 for an endpoint and less than $350 for a media station, for a total of pursuant to this agreement $1,100.