RIP Flip

[slowhands]

Cisco, the parent of Flip cameras, has announced plans to close out the popular Flip video camera line in a cost savings move. This was unexpected and surprising, since Flip is so popular and Cisco paid about $550 for the line recently. But the pressure to cut losses forced the decision.

From Reuters: "Last year Cisco sold 23 percent of all camcorders in the United States, ahead of Sony Corp's 22 percent and Eastman Kodak's 12 percent, according to market research firm NPD Group. Those figures exclude sales by Wal-Mart Stores Inc and some club stores. NPD does not release data on total units sold or market value.

Cisco said it would clean out its Flip phone inventory before ending the product line. It is almost unheard of for a manufacturer to kill a top selling product in its category."

 

[=C=]

Business decisions... People make bad ones sometimes.

Cisco on Tuesday announced that it will stop making the Flip camera, a popular pocket-sized video camera it bought only a couple of years ago from a company called Pure Digital. The reason? The company said it is strategically realigning its business to focus on selling its core products.

"We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy," Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a statement. "As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network's ability to deliver on those offerings."

Read more: Why Cisco killed the Flip mini camcorder | Signal Strength - CNET News

which translates to: we made a 550m mistake and are so bad at the consumer game that instead of selling the line we are just killing it.

 

[rhwestfall]

(no other response necessary)

 

[robint]

wow. :mooner: that sucks.

 

[flareside]

They aren't even trying to sell it off and at least get something back on their investment. If I were a shareholder, I would be a bit ticked.

 

[marshallkarp]

My rant. I liked my Flips and housing. This is a shame.

http://youtu.be/7rz_1mFysdc?hd=1

 

[rhwestfall]

They aren't even trying to sell it off and at least get something back on their investment. If I were a shareholder, I would be a bit ticked.

They probably cut a deal with Kodak not to sell it so their upcomming inferior product has a chance.....

 

[Mike]

I was never a big fan of the flip and thought it had eventually becane over-rated if you look at the competition. Flip were the early adopter of the technology though so they got all the press, a bit like apple, more sizzle then steak. Was a great idea when they first came out with it, but they let the competition get ahead of them.

For me the Vado by Creative is a lot better version of the flip, they copied all the good stuff of the flip made incremental improvements in that stuff and and added what was missing.

Wider angle lens, better battery life, more video storage, better quality video, rechargeable, removable, replaceable battery versus usb charging, better sound recording etc...

 

[kershiaB]

Cisco is best-known as a network services company. In 2009, however, the company bought Flip camera producer Pure Digital. Then, the company announced that it would be shutting down Flip camera production as a part of a re-organization. As Cisco shuts down Flip video camera division, 550 jobs could be cut. The real opportunity for Cisco was to use the Flip to build a business curating and displaying online video which would use bandwidth expanding Cisco's core business. That, wont now be realized.

 

[Kiwi303]

When the Flip was first envisioned, cellphone cams were puny, now most cellphone cams like the Iphones are competitive with the Flips camera quality/resolution, and do so many more things than just take video.

Just a case of camera tech catching up and passing the niche early adopter who thought mobile cellular phone integrated cameras would always be crap compared to standalone cameras.