Wow; this looks good; an Android-powered tablet that docks into a Cisco desk-phone and uses the phone’s IEEE 10/100/1000 wired link. Cisco says “you can push high-definition video from the tablet’s 7-inch display to an adjacent larger LCD monitor” via the dock’s Ethernet link.
When it’s un-docked it changes to use the EEE 802.11a/b/g/n wireless network that you should have available on your campus. Off campus it uses the 3G/4G cell phone network.
It has a touch interface, plays video and can be used with a wireless keyboard, mouse and headset, also USB-connected ditto, as long as it’s connected to the phone docking station. There’s an on-screen keyboard for use when it’s not docked.
There is just 32GB of flash memory plus it can use Secure Digital memory cards. The software includes the Firefox browser and you can store, edit and share videos.
CIsco is pushing it as a business tool for computing, collaboration and communication. People with it don’t or won’t need a laptop computer, or maybe even a desktop.
Cisco says: “The tablet will come standard with a virtual desktop client application, so it can act as a thin client on your Cisco Collaboration Architecture .”
How does this compare to the iPad? First off it’s a business tool and not a consumer content consumption device. It’s integrated with Cisco collaboration products, like TelePresence, and it has mouse support, a singular iPad lack.
It’s dock also provides USB as well as wireless connectivity and that implies you could hook up a printer or external hard drive or digital camera. It has an 8-hour battery life instead of the iPad’s 10 hours and that’s probably due to the CPU, an Intel Atom 1.6-Ghz processor.
The flash memory doesn’t scale to the iPad’s 64GB but you can add Secure Digital flash cards. The battery is detachable and serviceable, unlike the iPad’s closed off and inaccessible battery design.
The interface is said to be contacts-driven, which implies a collaboration focus. Think of all those video bits flying around the Cisco networks to which hundreds, thousands of these natty end-point devices will be connected. That’s what you call synergy.
You can also make phone calls when the thing is docked or when it’s not. It has a rear-facing camera and a forward-facing one for video calls. The forward-facing, integrated HD (720p and 30 fps) video camera has zoom functions. The rear-facing, high-resolution 5-megapixel camera enables real-time, VGA-quality (640 x 480) video capture and still-photo capture.
You hearing this Apple? Eat your heart out.
Here’s the bad news. Cius is currently a vapourware tablet, a spoiler, a do-not-buy-current-tablets tablet. Cisco says: “Customer trials of Cisco Cius will begin in the third quarter of calendar year 2010, with general availability in the first quarter of calendar year 2011.”
Having said that the design and feature set is eye-catchingly good. Whether the performance is as good enough to match the feature set is another matter entirely. But it looks a terrific conception. Congrats to CIsco.
Now, consider this. Cisco has just come up with a business employee computer that is a touch-based tablet with a phone dock. It can replace a notebook computer or a desktop and runs Android. The low-key response is; yawn, okay nice, so what.
The high-key response is that Cisco has just declared war on Microsoft’s desktop and notebook products and allied itself with Google. If you were sitting in Redmond which response would you you have?
Secondly, this is a flash-only device. There’s no half-way house with Seagate Momentus hybrid flash/HDD Momentus XT disk drives, and no experimentation with single-platter 2.5-inch drives. This is flash only, with maybe external USB-connect drives. If you are Seagate or Western Digital you really do not want this device to succeed and start replacing HDD-using notebooks and desktops.
Cisco, from the HDD manufacturers’s camp point of view, has put its hat into the flash ring and is behaving in a very unfriendly manner.
This Cius device has a lot of disruptive potential, an awful lot, and bears watching.
