Flip Is Gone, but How Does Cisco’s Fiasco Affect the Industry?
Shortly after Cisco CEO John Chambers released a memo saying that his company has “lost its focus, lacks discipline and needs to overhaul its operations,” Cisco confirmed its plan when it pulled the plug on Flip. The closing of its Flip division, a line of cameras known for their ease of use, involves the dismissal of 550 employees, and about $300 million for lay off charges.
Nevertheless, while Cisco may have shut down Flip because of a number of a number of factors, such as the rise of mobile and low margins, video and Unified Communications-as-a-Service will remain a key focus for the company. Verizon just partnered up with the networking giant to integrate Cisco’s Hosted Collaboration Solution to offer an enterprise unified communications and collaboration platform, which can be customized for its partners.
“The platform can be deployed as cloud-based only or a hybrid of a cloud service and on-premise offering. The services include IP PBX, hosted email, IM and presence, conferencing, management controls, unified fixed and wireless clients and multimedia communication.”
It seems Cisco hasn’t abandoned its telecommunications portfolio just yet, but it is fitting it into its new focus – and its partners are adopting this approach. According to a brief statement picked up by Computerworld, Cisco plans on selling its Cisco’s Umi (former) home videoconferencing system through enterprise and service provider channels.
The statement was released within the last 24 hours, and in the same period, CDW LLC received the Cisco Partner Summit global and theater awards for Global Small Business Partner of the Year , National Collaboration Partner of the Year and a number of others. SMBs are yet another segment Umi will target.
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