Death of the Flip Video Camera

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charles_hudson/5225996344/ 

Cisco Systems bought out Pure Digital (for a mere $590 million) and just this week (less than 2 years later), ended up dumping the Flip line just before their newest Flip camera was expected to go on the market -- a camera that allowed live video uploads via wireless networks. 

Some speculate that Cisco foresaw a shift in the video market away from Flip cams and similar devices toward the increases in mobile devices such as smart phones, iPod Touches, and iPads. But another theory is that Cisco, who also sells high-end video conferencing devices to very large corporations and even some school districts, might want to utilize the Flip’s small, simple, elegant, and high quality video technologies (and even the software) for those ventures... Hmmmmm... Makes one wonder...

Perhaps some day we’ll know the REAL reason to drop such a popular (and would-have-been-popular for at LEAST a year or two more) device... Or maybe we won’t. Either way, there are many upset Flip fans out there — teachers and students being a good portion of those fans!

David Pogue (New York Times) has more here: The Tragic Death of the Flip
... and has David says, "may it rest in pieces"...