Cisco Systems has decided to ditch its Flip camera business as it seeks to realign its operations following weak performances over the past year.
A reported 550 jobs are set to go as a result of Flip's demise, which comes after an internal email from Cisco chief executive (CEO) John Chambers called for the company to make changes urgently.
In what some described as Cisco's "burning platform moment," Chambers warned staff to prepare for a number of changes to ensure the networking giant does not let investors down again.
"We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy," Chambers said today.
"As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimise and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network's ability to deliver on those offerings."
Cisco bought Flip creator Pure Digital in 2009 for $590 million (worth 409 million at the time) after years of making moves in the consumer space an area the firm now plans to distance itself from.
At the time, many questioned why Cisco was moving further into the consumer space when its strengths lay in networking.
This morning, Cisco said it would realign its other consumer divisions to support four of five key company priorities - core routing, switching and services, as well as collaboration, architectures and video.
As for why Cisco ditched Flip cameras, the firm gave no particular reason, although the growth of camera-enabled smartphones may be a significant factor, alongside the need for restructuring.
Cisco's past two quarterly results have disappointed the market and in November the company said its sales growth would not be as high as analysts expected.
The firm has faced increasingly stiff competition in recent years, thanks to tech giants like HP making bigger plays in the networking market.
The move away from the consumer space may also bring into question the future of Cisco's tablet, known as the Cius.
According to various reports, the Cius is due to hit UK shores in the second quarter of 2011, but there was no official line from Cisco on a launch date.
-
Cleo attack victim list grows as Hertz confirms customer data stolenNews Hertz has confirmed it suffered a data breach as a result of the Cleo zero-day vulnerability in late 2024, with the car rental giant warning that customer data was stolen.
-
Lateral moves in tech: Why leaders should support employee mobilityIn-depth Encouraging staff to switch roles can have long-term benefits for skills in the tech sector
-
Global chip shortage hits Cisco supply chainNews CFO Scott Herren said that issues will last until at least the end of 2021
-
Cisco expects chip shortage to last at least another six monthsNews Chuck Robbins says the situation is bound to improve over the “next 12 to 18 months”
-
Cisco's new SD-WAN routers bring 5G and virtualization to enterprisesNews Aggregated service routers have been designed with large enterprises and cloud service providers in mind
-
Cisco introduces new Catalyst 8000 Series Edge platformsNews New platforms offer secure connectivity and greater visibility into applications across cloud, data center and edge networks
-
Why Apple wants iOS in Cisco's "fast lane"News Cisco and Apple are teaming up to help get more iOS devices into the enterprise
-
EMC World 2015: VCE unveils VxRack for mobile and cloud appsNews "Hyper-converged" system can scale out to thousands of racks
-
Cisco backtracks on cloud-based router strategyNews Networking giant responds to customer privacy complaints about home router setup.
-
Q&A: Rob Ray, IT Director at The FAIn-depth We speak to Rob Ray, IT Director at The FA, about the £100 million sports facility that is due to open this summer.
