Cisco Kills Its Android Tablet (CSCO, GOOG, AAPL)

Two years ago Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) introduced a tablet device it had named the ‘Cius’, which used the Android operating system from Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). The7-inch device was targeted to cost less than $1,000 and included a docking station with a telephone handset and a port to connect the tablet to a wired Internet connection.

And unless you read corporate press releases or work in a corporate IT shop, you probably didn’t even know Cisco made such a gadget. You didn’t miss anything, though, because the Cius is now a (very small) bit of history.

Today Cisco announced on its corporate blog that it would no longer continue to develop the Cius tablet. Cisco has basically run afoul of the growing “bring your own device” trend at corporate IT shops. And when employees bring their own tablets and smartphones, well, most of the devices have the familiar logo of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). Apple has supported the trend by paying a lot of attention to security issues and making it easier for corporate shops to incorporate the once-troublesome devices into company wide networks.

The Cisco blog post notes that the company plans to “double-down” on its Jabber and WebEx software products.

Cisco’s shares are trading up 0.02% today at $16.42 in a 52-week range of $13.30-$21.30.

Paul Ausick