Content area
Full Text
Note: Some critics have written off the Cisco Cius, but I now have a sense for why Cisco feels its communications gadget doesn't have to beat the iPad to win.
The Cisco Cius is not going to beat the iPad--and that's okay with Cisco.
After getting a demo and briefing at a Cisco office just outside of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., I understand the target market for the Cisco Cius a lot better. Whether the Cius will capture that market, I don't know, but I do think it's premature to write Cisco off.
Cisco asked for equal time after I wrote an admiring column on the Avaya Flare unified communications client, which offers a clever way of using social media icons to set up phone and videoconferences. Avaya has created an iPhone version of the Flare software, with a Windows version on the way, but it first came to market as a desktop device meant to be used as a videoconferencing appliance with an 11.6-inch screen that integrates with your phone and other executive office gadgets. You can pull the Flare device out of its docking station, but it's not really meant to be something you would carry around with you. That led me to write that although it the Flare is based on Google's Android mobile operating system, as is the Cius, "unlike the Cisco Cius, it's not really meant to compete in the tablet computer market."
Cisco wanted to make it clear that the Cius will not be competing in the consumer tablet market, either, in the sense that you will never see Cius units for sale at Target, beside iPads and Android tablets for the mass market. They have promoted it all along as an...