Earlier this month we reported that Cisco Systems had acquired Pure Digital Technologies, the makers of the popular Flip Video cameras. Today, Cisco officially announced the deal, which was for $590 million in stock. (We had the price at “north of $500 million).
Pure Digital will become part of Cisco’s consumer business group, which includes Linksys home routers and set-top boxes from its acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta. Cisco is calling the Flip cameras a new form of “visual networking,” whatever that means. In reality, the Flip is built for the YouTube generation. It is designed to take videos and immediately upload the to the Web. (Its output is a handy USB stick that flips open and plugs in directly to a computer). In other words, it is a device that encourages activities that consume a lot of bandwidth. As a networking company, Cisco wants you to use as much bandwidth as possible.
It is also looking for new growth markets across consumer devices, enterprise Web communication apps (like WebEx, Postpath, and Jabber), and even into enterprise servers and storage.
Pure Digital has raised $68 million over the past five years from Sequoia, Benchmark, Steamboat Ventures,and others.