Techcrunch reports that pure digital, maker of poplular flip video cameras, is close to being acquired by Cisco.
Flip cameras - dead simple and small video devices that are tailored towards users who want to upload video to the Internet - have become massively popular. One source says the company has sold more than $200 million worth of the tiny cameras in the last couple of years. Based on reviews of the recently released Flip Mino HD, we’re not surprised. The devices cost between $130 and $230 and have spawned a large group of copy cat competitors.
If this is really true, it is an interesting move by Cisco. Cisco sees video as a major area of opprtunity for the company. They are already in consumer video market through their acquisition of sicentific atlanta a maker of TV settop boxes. They are also pushing telepresence technology, next gen video conferencing system. Flip video cameras make it very easy to capture video and post it to the websites such as Youtube or stream it live using sites such as ustream and justintv. Cisco benefits if more people capture and post video to the web. But why do they need to buy this company? It appeas they want to expand their consumer video product portfolio.