We have been hearing the rumors of the upcoming Cisco Cius tablet for several months, and it’s finally been spotted at Telestra.  Seen at a Cisco Live event in Melbourne this week, Cius was available at Telco’s stand. The company is soon to begin testing, and adapting the enterprise-grade tablet for local market conditions when it becomes available in quantity around the end of May. After testing on an internal level, it will roll out for business customers by the end of this year.

The initial batch of Cisco Cius tablets will have 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth, while 4G network-capable models will be arriving later this year. This tablet is compatible with Cisco’s business-grade Teleprescence business video platform, as well as the company’s collaboration software. It runs Google Android 2.2 and offers several good features like 7-inch 1024 by 600 pixel resolution touch screen, 32GB of internal memory, SD slot, HDMI out port, a mini-USB port and a rear facing camera that can record 720p HD video. In fact, most Telestra officials consider it better than Apple’s iPad, as it is easy to develop business apps on it as unlike in case of iPad,  users are not forced to use Apple’s App Store for software distribution.

Telestra is targeting to sell Cius as a component of enterprise IP telephony systems instead of selling it as a single unit. While the exact pricing has not been confirmed yet, we can expect it to be as expensive as $700 to $1000, due to tight integration with Cisco’s enterprise software.

Interestingly, an  FCC listing was also spotted for the tablet, which indicates that we will see the tablet in markets anytime now. The listing reflected the filing of document by OpenPeak and not Cisco! (?). This clearly indicates towards the statement made by OpenPeak by CES in January when it said that it is working as a white box device maker with some big name brands. So, is that Cisco?  We think so.