I have been banging on about the Cisco Cius for a long, long time now. (See my post: “Cisco Cius: an iPad for the enterprise,” June 30th 2010.)

Ever since the global networking giant announced their entry into the tablet market, I have been mentioning them in the same breath as Apple’s iPad, BlackBerry’s PlayBook and Motorola/Samsung’s offerings. Now and again, i’ll meet a CIO or IT Director who raises their eyebrows thoughtfully at the mention of the Cisco product.

In recent months though, nobody’s cared. Indeed Cisco’s fall from grace in my entirely anecdotal experience has been dramatic. They were definitely a contender back when the iPad was hitting the world for the first time. Indeed I remember quite a few CIOs who quietly pointed out that they were “waiting to see what Cisco had to offer” before deciding on iPad. I think that decision period closed off quite a long time ago. The iPad won.

The last chap I spoke to about the Cius as “something to possibly consider” regarded me as though I’d suggested he put on a bright pink dress and start calling himself Elizabeth.

“How much will that cost then?” he asked. Not for nothing does he operate a technology budget that requires a footer on every page explaining, “all numbers are millions unless specified.”

“Er, well it’s Cisco I said,” with a bit of a pained look, “So it’ll be at least 3x the normal cost for a tablet.”

The executive stopped in his tracks. We were walking along a corridor West Wing style.

“And the rest?” he asked, before continuing, “How much stuff will we have to buy from Cisco just to make it work?”

I let the silence fill the void.

“Exactly,” he said, “We’ll buy iPads.”

And thus the Cius got about 2 seconds worth of consideration from this senior executive.

I wonder if the rest of the market is reacting in this manner, too?

There are lots of arguments in favour of Cisco’s tablet offering (think: Really cool unified communications) however I think they’re all being waved away with the global obsession for consumerisation. Far from pushing back, many huge enterprises appear to be fully embracing this trend which is especially popular with everyone getting a ‘free’ iPad. To the point that I’m seeing more and more companies simply buying huge data connections into their offices and letting their employees (effectively) work the rest out. Skype, FaceTime, Viber, whatever. Is there even a need to deploy an IP voice system any more?

This is all wholly anecdotal.

However based on my direct experience, I can point to about ten companies each with an IT budget of over $100m who’d never, ever buy Cisco anymore. This isn’t a slight on Cisco. It’s just that these companies have moved on. They’ve moved to the point whereby they don’t bother and don’t need to invest in this kind of technology.

Do you remember the time when enterprises would gladly spend $1,100 on a proper enterprise device when the consumer equivalent cost half or a third of the price? I do. Times have changed. How are you going to get that one past the CFO when the iPad is $399 and in active use at most of the Fortune 500?

What’s prompted my post today is the post from the team at Network World who — gasp — have seen the Cius in real life (“First Look: Cisco Cius“). They’ve even touched it. But they weren’t allowed to take it back to the office. The post is well worth a look if you’re at all interested in enterprise computing and collaboration and you’re after anice overview of the Cius. The official Cisco Cius site also has some information on the product.

Meanwhile I’ve yet to physically see one myself.

Is there room in the market for Cius? It’s not going to be an easy road for Cisco. Not at all. Not when absolutely everything they can throw at you in terms of an argument can be duplicated (or, depending on your perception, bettered) by the iPad.

I’m open to the concept myself. I still do think that, correctly implemented, a “Cius on every desk” could be a very powerful business tool. What’s your view?

That there is the all new Cisco Cius, an ultra-portable ‘mobile collaboration business tablet‘ that ‘offers access to essential business applications and technologies.’  At least, that’s what Cisco reckon.  And I’m inclined to agree.

Various people around the industry are describing it alternately as an iPad-killer, an iPad-rival and so on.   I think it’s certainly an interesting device concept.  You see the phone up there on the left?  That’s your standard all-new Cisco IP device, right?  But when you leave the office or leave your desk, you simply pick up the Cius screen there which becomes a stand-alone tablet.

It’s not running some proprietary nonsense, either.  It’s Android-based so you can access and use the wealth of current and future Android resources on the Android Market. 

The most important thing point about the Cius, however, is that it’s got a Cisco label on it.  Which means it’s most, most welcome in enterprise.  Nobody ever got shot for buying Cisco.  There will be a considerable number of CIOs who will relax and smile during the product evaluation discussions between iPad, various other Android tablets and the Cius.  Not only have you got the backing of the global connectivity giant that is Cisco, you’ve also got the ability to access products and services from the Android market.  Or, to put it another way, you can get your in-house development team to start developing custom applications and services for your Cius estate using industry standard and easily accessible technology. 

Aaand… let’s have a look at the other specs:

Applications Capabilities:

• 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, 3G/4G data and Bluetooth 3.0 help employees stay connected on and off-campus
• HD video (720p) with Cisco TelePresence solution interoperability for lifelike video communication with the simplicity of a phone call
• Virtual desktop client enables highly secure access to cloud-based business applications
• Android operating system, with access Android marketplace applications
• Collaboration applications including Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, WebEx, Presence, and IM

Tablet Highlights:

• 7” diagonal, high-resolution color screen with contact-based touch targets delivers an elegant, intuitive experience
• HD Soundstation supports Bluetooth and USB peripherals, 10/100/1000 wired connectivity and a handset option
• Detachable and serviceable 8-hour battery for a full day of work
• Highly secure remote connections with Cisco AnyConnect Security VPN Client
• HD audio with wideband support (tablet, HD Soundstation)

You can hear a little more about the specs and the thinking behind the Cius from this video featuring Cisco’s Kara Wilson, VP of UC & Collaboration Solutions Marketing.

Of course since this is Cisco we’re talking about there are whitepapers galore.  There are case studies.  There are use-case-analysis concepts.  Try this page for starters.

I think it’s a fascinating move by Cisco and I can hear the CIOs lining up to deploy thousands of these across their respective organisations.  I think it’s what a lot of companies have been waiting for.  Oh, you can go out and buy 5,000 Dell Streaks or 5,000 iPads for your executives, but how do you manage them?   How do you handle security?  How do you deal with unified collaboration?  What do you do about VPNing?  How do you make sure that video calling actually works?  And most importantly, how do you control the devices, your device estate and the related user policies?

The Cisco sales teams are going to be having a very, very busy time this year.

The Cisco Security team has — and I quote — “come to life in The Realm to keep the digital world safe!”

Heh. If you’re into comics, you should like this…

The company, which sells telco-grade ad serving, already has operators including Vodafone, Telefonica and Orange on its books as well as heavyweight customers like Coca Cola signed up. Getting Cisco and Moto on involved will doubtless give Amobee a boost with their collective handset and software experience, not to mention the cash.

VirtualLogix lets a user can access two separate operating systems on the same handset – allowing them to share some resources like memory, but also keeping other areas, such as applications, securely apart. VirtualLogix says virtualisation will make the inclusion of Linux on lower and mid-tier handsets easier by by allowing a handset to run the Linux operating system “together with the existing mobile phone stack simultaneously on a single processor core, without requiring a separate applications processor”.

Virtualisation is hotter than hot for enterprise PCs right now, and if Motorola’s bet is anything to go by, mobiles are going to be next frontier. After all, Motorola has a foot in practically all OS camps – Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian and its own proprietary stack – is this investment a sign it’s thinking of combining them? Or just a way of getting more Linux handsets into the market?