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Cisco to kill its Flip Video
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
In this Nov. 4, 2009 file photo, a Cisco Systems' Flip Video camera is displayed at Best Buy in Mountain View, Calif. Cisco Systems Inc. is exiting parts of its consumer businesses, with plans to shut its Flip video camera business Tuesday, April 12, 2011.
Associated Press
NEW YORK
Cisco Systems Inc., one of the titans of the technology industry, on Tuesday said it is killing the Flip Video, the most popular video camera in the U.S., just two years after it bought the startup that created it.
It appears to be a case of a big company proving a poor custodian of a small one, even one that makes a hit product. Cisco never meaningfully integrated the Flip Video into its main business of making computer networking gear.
Flip Video users are lamenting the demise of a camera that broke new ground. It was inexpensive, pocketable and very easy to use, from shooting to editing and online sharing. These features have been copied by many other manufacturers, but the Flip Video still outsells them.
The Flip Video is named after an arm that flips out of the camera body and lets the user connect it directly to a computer. The camera even contains video-editing software that fires up on the computer.
“There were many opportunities for Cisco to integrate Flip more into its vision of a networked world,” said Ross Rubin, an electronics industry analyst at NPD Group. “The camcorders, for example, never even had Wi-Fi built into them.”
Cisco didn’t explain why it’s shutting down the Flip Video unit. But the decision is part of a larger shakeup at the world’s largest maker of computer networking gear. After several quarters of disappointing results and challenges in its core business, it’s reversing years of efforts at diversifying into consumer products.
The shakeup announced by the San Jose, Calif., company Tuesday will result in the loss of 550 jobs.