The news has broken that Cicso is exiting it's consumer businesses to focus on the Enterprise Markets that are at the roots of it's business. See TechCrunch for info. Cisco's DNA is enterprise Networking. A victim of this re-alignment is the Flip Video Cam. Something that now proves that the Pure Digital Acquisition was an expensive $590M mistake.
The Flip Video Camera was a nice product. Simple to use. However, it was at odds with Cisco's Networked DNA. The Camera had to be connected to a PC in order to share the videos.
The Smartphone and iOS devices have won this battle. The iPod Touch looks like the best replacement for the Flip Cam. The advantage of Wi-Fi connectivity allows videos and photos to be quickly uploaded any time you are within reach of an accessible Wi-Fi network or a ClearSpot or Mi-Fi device.
Wouldn't the Eye-Fi SD Card have been more closely aligned with Cisco's network DNA? The Eye-Fi card Wi-Fi enables any camera that takes an SD Card.
Cisco will certainly be more focused supporting their enterprise customers. It won't mean the end of Cisco products coming in to the home but it is more likely that those products will be engineered to meet the demands of an enterprise and be badged with a more recognizable consumer market brand. For Cisco it is a sensible decision. The Flip Cam was an anomaly at Cisco. A popular consumer product in it's hey day in a range of products that are purchased, not by consumers, but by Enterprise IT and Communications Managers.
