Cisco Cius Death Another Affirmation of BYOD

You don’t have to look far to see proof that the BYOD (bring your own device) trend is transforming the culture of work.

You can witness the movement allowing employees to use their personal devices every time you spot a mobile worker glued to his smartphone in an airport or when a C-level executive pulls out an iPad in the boardroom.

The BYOD promise? Better work-life balance and improved productivity. Yet it isn’t a pristine movement. BYOD also increases pressure on IT to manage and secure devices and data. But regardless of the pros and cons, BYOD is radically changing IT’s traditional role.

It’s been such a sea change that it was only a matter of time before companies trying to manufacture enterprise-only mobile devices raised the white flag. Hewlett-Packard tried to create an enterprise-friendly tablet with the WebOS HP Touchpad and that died on the vine in swift and embarrassing fashion. The BYOD movement is also slowly showing BlackBerry-maker RIM the door as workers eschew company-sanctioned BlackBerrys for personal Android and iOS smartphones.

The latest example of BYOD collateral damage is the Cisco Cius tablet. Two weeks ago Cisco announced it will be discontinuing the Cius tablets. Debuting just a year ago, the Android-based Cius is a solid enterprise-grade tablet device that integrates with Cisco’s voice and video conferencing tools. It would be a success if there was no such thing as the iPad or if the consumerization of IT and BYOD did not exist. But the work/personal walls are being torn down.

Cisco made it clear in a company blog post penned by OJ Winge, a Senior Vice President in the Cisco TelePresence Technology Group, that it is phasing out the Cius effective immediately.

“Findings from the Cisco IBSG Horizons Study on virtualization and BYOD  shows that 95 percent of organizations surveyed allow employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the office, and, 36 percent of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices … Based on these market transitions, Cisco will no longer invest in the Cisco Cius tablet form factor, and no further enhancements will be made to the current Cius endpoint beyond what’s available today.”

No doubt the networking giant realized it is better served providing unified communications software such as Cisco Jabber and Cisco WebEx that work on different mobile OSes than trying to create an endpoint device of its own. RIP Cius. You were good, but your timing was very bad indeed.

What do you think? Has BYOD killed the idea of the “enterprise” tablet or smartphone?