Cisco Ditches Flip and $590 Million 121
darthcamaro writes "Remember the Flip? When Pure Digital Technology first came out with the device it was one of the hottest gadgets, providing users with an ultra-portable camcorder. Then Cisco came along and bought the Flip for $590 million in 2009. Now less than two years later, Cisco is throwing the money, 550 employees and the Flip out the door." Wired has an analysis of why Flip floundered. I hope this means I can find a AA-powered Flip UltraHD for $50 in a clearance bin.
pointless (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure why CISCO bought them, I'm hoping for some codec or patent rights or something. Otherwise that product was a total failure.
Re:Can I be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
The brilliance of this is that even if the Flip itself flops, Cisco still wins in the long run. As long as the Flip and the insane marketing hype surrounding it increased the popularity of HD video sharing on the web, people are going to need more routers in the network itself. I wonder who the ISPs and YouTubes of the world will be going to then...
Cisco never needed to sell the Flip as a physical product, they just needed to sell the idea of shooting LOTS of video and sharing it across the web. It seems like they've succeeded.