Cisco announced today its intent to acquire privately held Pure Digital Technologies, creator of the Flip video camcorder for consumers, for $590 million in stock.
The acquisition of Pure Digital is key to Cisco’s strategy to expand momentum in the media-enabled home and to capture the consumer market transition to visual networking, the company said in a statement.
Pure Digital’s Flip Video ($120-$225) has sold more than 2 million units by being “simple, accessible and fun,” Cisco says. The products come equipped with software that allows users to organize and edit videos, and then share them on YouTube, MySpace and other popular sharing Web sites.
You just plug the Flip into a USB port, which introduces Pure Digital’s management application. Then you can save files on a PC or hit a couple of buttons and send the videos off to YouTube, Facebook or some friends via e-mail.
Upon the close of the acquisition, Pure Digital will become part of Cisco’s Consumer Business Group, which includes Linksys by Cisco home networking, audio and media-storage products.
Can a WiFi/WiMAX Flip Phone be far off?
In related news, Sony Ericsson plans to launch its C905 8 megapixel camera phone in the second quarter, reports Reuters. Jon Mulder, the company’s head of product marketing for North America, said the device will either launch with AT&T or T-Mobile USA and will cost between $200 and $250, including a subsidy. The Wi-Fi Enabled phone features integrated A-GPS for geotagging, autofocus, image stabiliser, and video (QVGA 30fps).
By Cisco’s own reckoning, video bandwidth grew from 12% of consumer Internet traffic in 2006 to around 30% today. By 2012, the company expects it will account for 50% of all consumer bandwidth, about twice the total number of bits per second that consumers use today.
