RIP Flip Camera, 2007-2011
The Flip video camera entered the world in the most tech start-up fashion: in a small office above a department store in San Francisco. It outsold the big boys -- Nikon, Sony and Kodak -- and was eventually purchased by Cisco in 2009 for $590 million. Flip was the poster child of the, "If you do only one thing but do it well, you will succeed" movement. Cisco killed Flip today, because smartphones do a lot of things very well.
via Carissa GoodNCrazy
Cisco's CEO John Chambers said in Flip's eulogy, "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."
John Chambers was never one for goodbyes.
Flip couldn't compete and was sent to a farm upstate, where it will frolic with Walkman cassette players and Palm Pilots. It is survived by videos of funny cats and people lighting their farts on fire.
Cisco Shuts Down Flip, Its Video Camera Unit [NYT]
[ngreene@villagevoice.com / @nickgreene]
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