ITWire

The Cius was announced in the US in June 2010 and started shipping there in April this year. That schedule represented some slippage from the original and Cisco might well find the Cius facing tough competition from what seems to be unstoppable penetration of employee-owned tablets into the enterprise, aided by an increasingly wide range of products to deal with the inevitable security concerns.

Also, when announced Cisco said it would have 3G, Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, and later 4G. To date, only WiFi and Bluetooth are available. According to the US spec sheet 3G/4G will be available "soon". (but this could be a CDMA version for US networks that will not work in Australia).

Telstra is offering the Cius only to its Enterprise and Government division customers. Telstra executive director, Philip Jones, said the CIUS tablet would enable businesses to remain better connected. "Telstra is now able to offer organisations a built-for-business tablet to keep workers connected so they can collaborate not just by email but also via IP telephony and even TelePresence away from their desk. CIUS is a built for business tablet giving organisations communication, collaboration and computing in an easy to use integrated device."

The Cius is designed to provide mobile access to the full range of Cisco's business communications and collaboration applications, including HD video. According to Cisco, the device is fully interoperable with Cisco's high end telepresence videoconferencing, offers HD video streaming, multi-party conferencing, email, messaging, browsing and the ability to produce, edit and share content stored locally or centrally in the cloud. It weighs 0.52kg. A detachable battery is claimed to offer eight hours usage.

The Cius also comes with a docking station incorporating a telephone handset: when inserted into the dock the combined unit effectively becomes a touchscreen business telephone handset.

Like the Apple iPad, an on-board accelerometer orients applications for viewing in portrait or landscape modes as the user rotates the device to their preferred viewing orientation.

The Cius features a front-mounted 720p HD camera which refreshes at up to 30 frames per second; a rear-facing 5 megapixel camera; a seven inch (18cm) high-resolution widescreen super VGA touch-screen display; single-button TelePresence interoperability and dual noise-cancelling microphones for audioconferencing.

The Cius is supported by Cisco Unified Communications Manager and, according to Cisco, is easily integrated into existing Cisco customer environments. Communications are secured with Cisco AnyConnect VPN Security, part of the Cisco Borderless Networks architecture.

Applications supported include Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, Cisco WebEx Connect, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center, Cisco Presence, and interoperability with Cisco TelePresence.

The device can also tap into the full range of Android applications and Cisco says it will help expand Android based applications for business by offering Cisco Collaboration Application Protocol Interfaces (APIs) to developers through a software developer's kit.

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