As part of the restructuring plan, Cisco will be discontinuing its Flip-branded flash memory camcorders, a product line that the company took onboard with its purchase of San Francisco-based Pure Digital Technologies just two years ago.

Pure Digital first came to our attention in mid-2003, when they launched the US market's first "single use" digital camera. In essence, the plan was to provide a reusable camera, suitable for rental to the public, and including no standard connectivity or removable memory so as to ensure customers had to return to the retailer when they wanted their prints. Apparently based on an existing model from Taiwan's Primax Electronics Ltd., the Dakota Digital camera reached the US market through a partnership with Ritz Camera Centers. Predictably, within a few months hackers had discovered how to offload their photos and reuse the camera, damaging the business model, and this (coupled with an uninspired design that lacked any way to review images) conspired to bring the Dakota Digital's life to a premature end. Pure Digital returned 18 months later, this time in cooperation with pharmacy chains CVS and Rite Aid, and offering a "single use" camcorder. The concept was similar to that of the still camera, although there was now a small LCD display included in the design, which was hacked almost immediately. A game of cat and mouse followed, with Pure Digital issuing updated versions of the CVS / Rite Aid camcorders, and hackers figuring out new ways to circumvent the security changes in each new variant. By 2009, these rental camcorders had been discontinued.

In the meantime, perhaps having learned important lessons about the difficulties of offering rental products -- not to mention the demand for a low-cost camcorder -- Pure Digital had released a precursor to the product line for which it would become best known. The Pure Digital Point & Shoot Video Camcorder, like its CVS / Rite Aid cousins, could be taken to either chain to have its contents offloaded. Unlike those models, though, the new model also included a standard USB jack which folded out of the side of the camcorder's body, allowing it to be directly connected to the user's computer, without any hacking. Priced at $130, the Point & Shoot Video Camcorder didn't exactly offer stellar video quality, but that wasn't the point. The VGA video it captured was "good enough", and it was relatively affordable, compact, and simple to use. The design showed the way forward for the company, which quickly launched a followup, simultaneously introducing the catchy name by which all of Pure Digital's subsequent products would be known -- "Flip".

Available from May 2007, the Flip Video piggybacked on the burgeoning popularity of video sharing sites, led by Google's recent acquisition, YouTube. As with all of the subsequent Flip models, the Flip Video had a simple fixed focus, fixed focal length lens. Later models added high definition 720p video capture, and gradually increased the memory to as high as 8GB, while a separate Flip Video Mino line focused on reducing the camcorder's body size. Overall, though, the Flip was surprisingly little-changed throughout its lifetime, with Pure Digital--and later, Cisco, after the company was acquired in early 2009--instead emphasising fashion-friendly skinnable exteriors, marketing tie-ins, and attention-grabbing giveaways such as that at 2008's YouTube Live event, where audience members were provided with Flip Mino camcorders on which to capture their memories.

Unfortunately for Cisco, the world was fast changing around its Flip products. With even 720p high definition video having very low resolution compared to that of still imaging, the relatively low quality lenses of camera phones weren't a limiting factor. They did however offer an advantage in terms of instant gratification, being able to upload clips directly from the phone to popular video sharing sites, and the Flip series never attempted to challenge in this area. Nor did consumers capturing video with their cell phone need to carry an extra gadget. The result was dwindling sales for the Flip products, and despite having paid some US$590 million to purchase Flip only two years ago, that portion of Cisco's business has now been shuttered.

Diehard fans of Flip's products will likely mourn its passing, but chances are that many of Flip's one-time customers won't even notice the news, having long ago switched to capturing video with their cell phones.