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This was a big deal before the rise of the smartphone. No cables. Great video (relatively speaking) even in low-light conditions. Good audio. Simple interface.
by ilamont 9y ago
This was a big deal before the rise of the smartphone. No cables. Great video (relatively speaking) even in low-light conditions. Good audio. Simple interface. Inexpensive. I used it for work (online publishing) and my kids loved it, too.
Compared to the Japanese camcorders that required cables, cassettes, and an 80-page manual to figure out, the Flip was a no-brainer for people who just wanted an easy way to shoot video and get it on their computer.
But, as others have noted, what the heck was Cisco thinking? IIRC, the company wanted to push into expensive "telepresence" systems but I don't see how the Flip fit into this vision.
ETA: My pet theory is Cisco corporate strategists or the CEO believed the spin put out by Flip and its investors. Maybe another company was circling, too.
- jerryr 9y agoAround the time of the Pure Digital acquisition, Cisco was making a push into the home. They started buying up consumer brands like Flip and Linksys. I can't speak to why--perhaps their enterprise growth had slowed due to the recession? Anyways, they floundered with the consumer brands for a while before killing them (Flip) or selling them off (Linksys). People hypothesize that the rise of smartphones killed off Flip, but I really believe it was the Cisco acquisition that killed it. I think Flip could have otherwise survived for a few more years out of a tail of slow adopters before pivoting to a GoPro-type market. I worked on the Flip Mino, but as a consultant, not a Pure Digital employee. I followed them fairly closely, but didn't have much inside information, so the above is just my own hypothesis. Though OP's article seems to have come to the same conclusion.