Cisco to Close Down its Flip Video Camera Business and Cut 550 Jobs as it Restructures its Consumer Products Unit.
As part of the company’s comprehensive plan to align its operations, Cisco today announced that it will exit aspects of its consumer businesses and realign the remaining consumer business to support four of its five key company priorities – core routing, switching and services; collaboration; architectures; and video. One of the casualties of the refocus is the Flip Video Camera business which Cisco bought from Pure Digital Technologies for $590m in 2009.
Cisco’s plan includes: Closing down its Flip business and supporting current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan. Refocusing Cisco’s Home Networking business for greater profitability and connecting to the company’s core networking infrastructure as the network expands into a video platform in the home. These industry-leading products will continue to be available through retail channels. Integrating Cisco umi into the company’s Business TelePresence product line and operating through an enterprise and service provider go-to-market model, consistent with existing business TelePresence efforts. Assessing core video technology integration of Cisco’s Eos media solutions business or other market opportunities for this business. As part of the overhaul, Cisco plans to cut 550 jobs.
Cisco plan is to focus on its enterprise customers and basically eliminating its consumer products. Its no surprise that the Flip has lost it’s novelty and usefulness with the ability to record and stream video directly from the consumer’s iPhone, Android or Blackberry phones.
John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO states “We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy. 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.”
