4 ms·

I own 2 flips and I love the simplicity, I share it with my kids and extended family for all occassions. Cisco is positioning itself as enterprise networking c

I own 2 flips and I love the simplicity, I share it with my kids and extended family for all occassions. Cisco is positioning itself as enterprise networking company. They should not kill the Flip business, selling it is a good option.

martincmartin 16y ago
As the article says: "In a world where consumers can now record and stream video directly from their iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phone, Flip’s video camera business is no longer novel or useful."
- nitrogen 16y ago
  I would much rather record video with a Flip camera than my Android phone. The Flip is instantly ready to record when I turn it on, and it boots in at most 3 seconds. There is very little delay between stopping and starting, so I don't miss what's going on if I pause/restart to create a new file. My Epic takes several seconds just to load the camera app, several seconds more plus a stupid "MMS vs. normal" question to switch to video, and has an annoying UI.
  - RickHull 16y ago
    I think the real issue is that the phone video experience will continue to improve, so the market for a dedicated video device is decidedly more about prosumer features than gee-why-not convenience. i.e. the Flip still has a niche today, but it's clear that the story doesn't end well
  - jokermatt999 16y ago
    How does the iPhone's camera app compare? I've got a Droid, and I concur with your "this camera app sucks" assessment, but I hear that others are better. In fact, my crappy flip phone's camera app booted up much faster, so it really might just be the Android camera app being not so good. Hopefully that will get some love in the future, because I typically don't bother with mine.
- ChuckMcM 16y ago
  I've never been "inside" the loop on one of these decisions and I find them fascinating. If you've bought a company and you can't make it work, and it has to go, it would seem you have three options: 1) Sell off the assets, let the people go, and sub lease the space. 2) Sell the team and its products to another company. 3) Divest yourself of the company and assets by selling it back to the original founders. You're going to write off your purchase regardless and for a company like Cisco it will comfortably keep them from paying tax in the US for a year or two perhaps. But lets say you sell it back to the original (if they are around) management team. How would you structure such a deal? If you were one of those managers what would you need to ask for? Clearly you need some working capital because you'll have material in inventory and in the pipeline. You need to retain the manufacturer contracts (or a modified contract if they are more generic) and you need some space to hold the team. Seems like option #1 is quick, painful (you lay off 550 people in this example) and you have a lot off excess material to dump / dispose at a loss. I tried to buy one of my patents back from Sun (they were never going to use it) and that was a complete waste of time. So I wonder how one evaluates the impact to the business of these choices. Anyone here been in that situation and chosen option 2 or 3 ? Did it work out? Not? Did you wish you had chosen option 1 ?

martincmartin 16y ago

As the article says: "In a world where consumers can now record and stream video directly from their iPhone, Android or BlackBerry phone, Flip’s video camera business is no longer novel or useful."

nitrogen 16y ago
I would much rather record video with a Flip camera than my Android phone. The Flip is instantly ready to record when I turn it on, and it boots in at most 3 seconds. There is very little delay between stopping and starting, so I don't miss what's going on if I pause/restart to create a new file. My Epic takes several seconds just to load the camera app, several seconds more plus a stupid "MMS vs. normal" question to switch to video, and has an annoying UI.
- RickHull 16y ago
  I think the real issue is that the phone video experience will continue to improve, so the market for a dedicated video device is decidedly more about prosumer features than gee-why-not convenience. i.e. the Flip still has a niche today, but it's clear that the story doesn't end well
- jokermatt999 16y ago
  How does the iPhone's camera app compare? I've got a Droid, and I concur with your "this camera app sucks" assessment, but I hear that others are better. In fact, my crappy flip phone's camera app booted up much faster, so it really might just be the Android camera app being not so good. Hopefully that will get some love in the future, because I typically don't bother with mine.
ChuckMcM 16y ago
I've never been "inside" the loop on one of these decisions and I find them fascinating. If you've bought a company and you can't make it work, and it has to go, it would seem you have three options: 1) Sell off the assets, let the people go, and sub lease the space. 2) Sell the team and its products to another company. 3) Divest yourself of the company and assets by selling it back to the original founders. You're going to write off your purchase regardless and for a company like Cisco it will comfortably keep them from paying tax in the US for a year or two perhaps. But lets say you sell it back to the original (if they are around) management team. How would you structure such a deal? If you were one of those managers what would you need to ask for? Clearly you need some working capital because you'll have material in inventory and in the pipeline. You need to retain the manufacturer contracts (or a modified contract if they are more generic) and you need some space to hold the team. Seems like option #1 is quick, painful (you lay off 550 people in this example) and you have a lot off excess material to dump / dispose at a loss. I tried to buy one of my patents back from Sun (they were never going to use it) and that was a complete waste of time. So I wonder how one evaluates the impact to the business of these choices. Anyone here been in that situation and chosen option 2 or 3 ? Did it work out? Not? Did you wish you had chosen option 1 ?