For the past couple of years, an unknown brand has made quite a stir in the cheap video camera market. The Flip video camera is super simple to use. Just press the big red button to start recording and press it again to stop. Then, you simply press to pop out a USB plug which flips out off the side of the camera (hence the name flip) and you are ready to download to your PC or laptop. From there, it’s a cinch to upload to the Web.
This little portable camera, that fits in your shirt pocket, has popularized the use of video on blogs and online marketers just love it to get video testimonials to put on their websites.
The Flip is made by a company called Pure Digital and, according to folklore, started out by making a cheap $29 disposable video camera designed for quick download to a PC. Somewhere along the line, a hacker found a way to reuse the camera over and over. Pure Digital was smart enough to realize that there was a market for a cheap camera and repackaged it into a sturdier and better camera along with more memory capacity and named it “The Flip“.
Now, it seems that Cisco, flipped over that camera and the company to the tune of $590 million.
Cisco is not a household name, they make sexy products like switches and routers but, in order to gain access into the very lucrative market of home electroncs, it has quietly bought companies in the past few years such as Scientific Atlanta, which makes a lot of cable TV boxes.
Now, Cisco has big plans: Why a laptop when you can upload directly from the camera to the web by way of WiFi or 4G wireless ?
Cisco wants to use its expertise in wireless technology to wirelessly connect all knds of small electronics appliances.
For example, you could connect your smart phone or PDA to your printer wirelessly. Scan a document and upload it to your cell phone. Download videos from your Flip cam to a DVD burner. Have all those peripherals work wthout the need of a PC. In fact, Cisco is working on a home storage center for various media such as photos, videos and audio.
With their acquisition of Scientific Atlanta, they have the technology to produce the next Tivo style recorder, which is in fact a PC in disguise.
How do you see the future of home entertainment, video and the web ?
Leave your comments.
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