I’m returning to the topic of the Cisco Cius, but I promise I won’t make it an obsession.
My view of the commercial prospects for the Cius has shifted significantly during the past year, from when Cisco first announced the pseudo-tablet to now, as it prepares to ship the device, presumably in something approximating volumes. Back in the summer of 2010, I thought the Cisco Cius might have a fighting chance of currying favor within the company’s installed base, playing to IT decision makers with a practical and broad-based extension of its video-collaboration strategy.
Changing Landscape
Some things have changed since then. The Apple iPad franchise, as we all know, has gone from strength to strength. iPads now proliferate in small businesses and enterprises as well as in homes. They’ve crossed the computing rubicon from the consumer realm to the business world. They, like iPhones and other smartphones, also have helped to engender the much-discussed “consumerization of IT,” whereby consumers have insisted on bringing their favorite devices to the office, where they have been gradually and grudgingly accepted by enterprise IT departments under imperatives from CFOs to bring down IT-related capital and operating expenses.
That has cut into Cisco’s appeal. Cisco, as a big old-school enterprise player, didn’t count on consumerist employees having any appreciable say in the navigation of the enterprise IT ship. Cisco, as the Flip debacle, made obvious, is not exactly a popular consumer brand, notwithstanding the barrage of television commercials it has unleashed on couch potatoes during the last several years.
One could also argue that the commoditization of a broad swathe of enterprise-networking equipment, led by Cisco competitors, also is slashing into the giant’s dominance as well as its margins. Moreover, it remains to be seen how the inexorable march of virtualization and cloud computing will redefine the networking universe and Cisco’s role as the brightest star in that firmament.
Penny-Pinching as New Normal
Then there are macroeconomic factors. Everywhere in the developed world, IT buyers at SMBs and large enterprises alike are trying to save hard-earned money. Cisco can wave cost-of-ownership studies all it wants, but most network and technology buyers do not perceive Cisco products as money savers. Consequently, there’s a big push from buyers, as perhaps never before, for open, standards-based, interoperable solutions that are — you guessed it — cheaper to buy than the proprietary solutions of yore.
So, it all amounts to a perfect storm driving right through the heart of John Chambers’ once-peaceful neighborhood. This is true for Cisco’s entire product portfolio, not just the Cius, but I’m writing about the Cius today — not that I’m obsessed with it, you understand — so let me pull things back into tighter focus now.
Trying to Stop the Phones from Bleeding
With the Cius, Cisco still seems to the think that the old rules, the old market dynamics, and its old customer control still apply. I thought more about this yesterday when I received an email message from a regular reader (imagine that!) who pointed out to me that Cisco is right about one thing: The Cius isn’t a tablet.
I’ll quote directly from his message:
The Cius isn’t a tablet — it only looks like one. It’s a desktop and video phone. Cisco is in this business because PCs and wireless handsets are subsuming the function of the enterprise desktop phone (thanks to Microsoft Lync, Apple iPhone, Android, etc.). Their phone business is a multi-billion dollar per year business. I agree — the Cius is a distraction, but they have to do *something* to protect that desktop phone revenue stream. Tough spot.
These are perceptive comments, and they’re borne out by recent articles and analysis on Cisco’s Cius push. All of which makes me feel, even more than when I wrote my Cius post of earlier this week, that the product is doomed to, as Mike Tyson said in one of his best malapropisms, “fade into Bolivian.”
Gambit Won’t Work
Cisco has made a lot of money selling desktop IP phones, but that gravy train, like so many others, is drawing fewer passengers at each station. The trends I mentioned above — stronger consumer-oriented offerings from competitors in smartphone and tablets, the consumerization of IT, the enterprise focus on cutting IT costs wherever possible, and a concomitant pull away from premium proprietary technologies — are threatening to eviscerate Cisco’s IP phone franchise.
Hence, the Cius. But, even as a defensive bulwark, it doesn’t work. At the end of the day, CIsco might see an IP phone replacement when it looks at the Cius through its rose-colored glasses, but customers will see it for what it is — a relatively high-priced, seven-inch tablet running a smarphone-version of Android, and tied to proprietary video, voice, and collaboration solutions. Both the Cius and the AppHQ go strongly against the tide of IT consumerization and mobile-platform heterogeneity. That’s not a tide Cisco can reverse.
With sublime brevity, my reader-correspondent said it best: Tough spot.
Twilight in the Valley of the Nerds 