Who's Using the Cisco Cius Tablet?

Tablets from Apple, Motorola, Samsung and about a dozen other consumer electronics manufacturers are growing so popular that shipments could reach 250 million by 2017, according to NPD In-Stat. Amid the Apple iOS and Google Android frenzy, just who the heck has a Cisco Cius tablet topping his or her Christmas wish list?

Certainly not your everyday consumer. However, some businesses are testing the Cius for integrating new applications securely with their existing Cisco unified communications (UC) environments. They're also seeking the general enterprise-class sales and support experience that they can't get from companies that build communications devices for the masses.

The tablet makers focused on the mainstream consumer market "just don't have experience selling into the enterprise," says Orlando Portale, chief innovation officer at Palomar Pomerado Health. "You don't even know who to go to for support; you're on your own," Portale says.

The healthcare provider operates medical centers and hospitals in North San Diego County in southern California and currently is testing about 20 Cius tablets with an electronic medical records (EMR) application it has designed for the Android platform.

The Cisco Cius tablet, shown here, is based on Android 2.2. Palomar Health hopes Cisco will evolve the device in sync with the Android operating system, which is up to version 4.0 and contains features, such as near-field communications, that Palomar would like to leverage.

IP Desk Phone Replacement

The 7-inch-screen Cius is actually a modern-day, mobile endpoint for Cisco's Unified Communications Manager (UCM) IP telephony call server and collaboration ecosystem. It can be used as a UC, video- and voice-enabled desk phone when docked into its media station and as a wireless portal to the same features when removed.

Organizations not running UCM will have no use for the tablet. However, Cisco estimates that 100,000 businesses have UCM installed supporting 40 million IP endpoints.

One Cius lure is that consumer-class devices lack the enterprise-class security that businesses need. Palomar Pomerado Health, for example, originally chose the Android OS development platform to give doctors flexibility in their device choices. However, when it went to deploy the application, the healthcare provider ran into a couple of snags.

"Most of the Android tablets don't support a VPN [virtual private network], so we couldn't support remote users," says Portale. Access to full patient data would have been restricted to locally mobile caregivers, and that shortfall proved to be a deal-breaker.

So Palomar Pomerado Health put aside the Motorola Xoom it was testing and looked to the Android 2.2-based Cius, which supports Cisco VPNs and remedies the security issue. Currently, Palomar is supporting its EMR application on the Cius only. However, the Apple iOS platform also supports Cisco VPN technology, so Palomar plans to port its EMR application to the iPad and iPhone, too.

Mobile Telepresence

Palomar Health makes extensive use of telepresence capabilities, most often when a nurse contacts an on-call physician for a patient consult. The provider also intends to put a Cius media station at each patient bedside in a new billion-dollar facility opening next summer so that long-distance patient consultations could take place as well.

Creating this type of integrated, secure UC/collaborative environment isn't possible on consumer platforms without "rooting devices, which we're probably not supposed to do," adds Portale. The provider has integrated its EMR app with Cisco presence and other UC capabilities so that the features can be launched directly from the application, he adds.

As with Palomar's case, the majority of investments in the $750 Cius have been from enterprises "buying a dozen or two to kick the tires," acknowledges Roberto De La Moro, senior director of collaboration solutions at Cisco.

He positions the Cius as a mobile UC endpoint that's an IP desk phone when docked into a Cisco media station; a mobile phone when removed; and email, chat, IM, presence, WebEx conferencing and telepresence communicator in either mode.

Though the Cius has a smaller screen than most consumer tablets, Cisco is reportedly poised to offer other form factors, too. "The form factor of a larger screen has a great advantage for media, but at the cost of size," explains De La Moro. "You can't put [10-inch screen devices] in your pocket. Generally, we've found that mobility fares higher in the hierarchy of needs than a beautiful screen."

He adds: "We have some customers in entertainment, hospitality and field services with thousands of Ciuses. But we're an enterprise company; we're not expecting to ship the same volumes [of Ciuses] that the consumer device makers do."

Cisco shipped 2.3 million IP phones (wired and wireless) last quarter, he says, and its goal is "to increase that number to 4 million or more per quarter, including the Cius."

The Cius currently supports Wi-Fi. 3G/4G capabilities are imminent: AT&T said last May it would start selling the Cius with HSPA+ connections in late 2011 or early 2012. Verizon Wireless has said it plans to offer a 4G version of the device for use on its LTE network.