Cisco has decided to "embrace mobility." The real question is: Why should mobility bother to embrace Cisco?

In the first of what we can expect will be many tablet plays by the IP-PBX and UC vendors, Cisco has introduced the Android-based Cius. With their fondness for cutesy two-syllable names the Cius (pronounced "SEE-us"--oh, how creative, how video-centric) might also have been called it the 'Mitu" (pronounced "MEE-too").

Once again it is Apple who is defining the mobile experience and capitalizing on the groundbreaking user interface they pioneered with the iPhone. By comparison, the Cisco Cius appears to have been developed using the "Cons" side of an iPad "Pros and Cons" chart:

* Apple goes "consumer," so Cisco goes "enterprise."

* Apple uses the iPhone OS, so Cisco goes Android.

* In what was probably the tipper for Cisco, the initial iPad lacks a video camera so the Cius can do video--like the next iteration of the iPad won’t have more cameras than a minivan has airbags.

I was not overly impressed with the idea of the tablet concept when the iPad was first announced, but having experienced it first hand, I am now convinced that tablets, at least "well designed" tablets, will be the next major hardware platform for enterprise users. The consumer uptake of the iPad has been monumental, but tablets will insinuate their way into the enterprise in countless ways. Yeah, the health care vertical will be part of that (okay, you've now heard that a thousand and ONE times), but that will be one market among thousands.

The real revolution will be seen as car salesmen, shop foremen, manufacturing supervisors and millions of knowledge workers make tablets their standard limited-input, "around-the-office" computing platform. Anyone who is carrying a laptop or a notebook (the paper kind) will soon be dropping those for a tablet. Video will likely be a minor factor, with utilization comparable to what we see on desktops, but only when the user is stationary (you can’t hold the thing steady when you're walking).