Cisco Slashes Workforce, Drop Kicks the Flip

Posted 04/12/2011 at 9:41am | by Paul Lilly

5

Comments

Print

We're big fans of Cisco's Flip digital video cameras. They're great for taking spontaneous HD videos on-the-go and quick uploading to your favorite social networking portals. Sadly, it looks as though Cisco is conceding the ultra-portable HD camera market to the growing number of capable smartphones and will cease producing Flip cameras. That's only part of the story.

According to CNN, Cisco is abandoning several consumer businesses, not just the Flip, and will lay off around 550 employees in the process. Going forward, Cisco plans to serve consumers indirectly through its business customers instead of selling products direct to home users.

"We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy," Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a statement. "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."

Most of those 550 job cuts will come from Cisco's soon-to-be-defunct Flip division. In addition, Cisco is taking up to a $300 million charge for the divestitures and layoffs in the current and subsequent quarters, CNN said.

That's too bad, given our mostly positive experience with Cisco's Flip line. This means if you're in the market for a Flip camera, you may want to act fast before supply starts to dwindle.

Flip Video 1GB Review (8 verdict)
Flip SlideHD Review (7 verdict)
Flip MinoHD Review (9 verdict)
Flip Video MinoHD 8GB Review (9 verdict)