Dang, it! This turned into alleged to be a story approximately a product achievement, not a product failure. Pure Digital created the low-cease enormously portable video digicam marketplace some years returned after which got offered out for a 1/2 one thousand million U.S. Bucks through the networking large Cisco. Cisco is full of smart, bright product managers, and they need to raise this a hit product into outer space. But they failed to, and now the Flip video digital camera is going away; what took place?
Why I Loved The Flip Video Camera
So I’m inclined to ‘fess up – I personal a Flip video digicam. In truth, I so fell in love with this product that I sold one early on while it becomes nevertheless owned by using Pure Digital. However, after some time of traveling around in my pocket all the time, the screen failed. I ended up getting a Kodak Zi8 to replace it in part because the Zi8 had a feature that the Flip in no way did – it had a jack that allowed it to be used with an external microphone.
I kept my eye on the Flip through the years because I was still seduced using its small length. I by no means again offered one surely as it truly seemed to trade – the Flip that is being supplied these days positive looks the same as the Flip that I bought numerous years in the past. Sure, they’ve come out with an HD model and a few pretty “skins” that allow you to customize it; however, that appears to be approximately it.
What Went Wrong Between Cisco And The Flip
It appears as though the cause that the Flip product line did not do properly beneath control through Cisco is because of preventable units of situations: the Flip changed into an awful purchase selection for Cisco, and then Cisco did a negative job of coping with the product once they had it. The product line might have survived this type of mistake, but it couldn’t conquer both of them.
The Wrong Decision
Cisco must now not have purchased the Flip product line. Sure, at the time, it was regarded asan excellentd concept. Cisco’s John Chambers introduced that Cisco becomes buying Pure Digital to sell products that could create content that might drive the want for bigger networks – Cisco’s core commercial enterprise.
However, what became overlooked in all of the sparkling press releases turned into that Cisco offered Pure Digital now not because they had been in a first-rate “adjacent marketplace,” however instead because Cisco’s center enterprise changed into slowing. Because of this mistake, Cisco observed itself in a market that it genuinely didn’t recognize anything about – client electronics. The forces that drive this market are unlike those that power Cisco’s foremost organization networking market.
Additionally, Cisco’s concept that their logo call conveys exceptional and innovation in the company market might help sell greater Flip video cameras. It failed too. I, for one, don’t partner with Cisco with domestic products and might alternatively purchase something from Sony or Apple before I’d buy something from Cisco. Finally, Cisco’s thoughts about using the Flip product line to sell its other products become a pipe dream. People who’re buying a US$100 video digital camera aren’t going to be the same people who buy a US$25,000 excessive-quit router.
Bad Product Decisions
Did I mention that the Flip product line appeared to be stuck in a time-warp? In the quick transferring discipline of consumer electronics, this is the worst factor that can show up. The Flip quite lots were given mowed over with the advent of smartphones: Apple and Android merchandise keep getting higher and higher every couple of months at doing what the Flip does.
The Cisco product managers could have saved the Flip. Just like the parents over at MySpace, they might have specialized in storing the delivery from happening. One way to try this could be to work very toughly to contain social networking capabilities. Just imagine if you could shoot a video of your dog barking a Christmas tune and then hit a button and have it routinely uploaded to each YouTube and your Facebook account. But that by no means came about.
Finally, the product never moved on. There turned into in no way a compelling excessive-give-up Flip product that I saw in magazines that triggered me to pause and look longingly at (e.G. The iPad 2) considering what I should do with it. The Cisco product managers would have had to be careful here, but things like an excellent zoom lens, Wi-Fi connectivity, and perhaps even an apps shop only for the Flip might have done the trick. We’ll never recognize.
What All Of This Means For You
When a business enterprise desires to develop its bottom line, buying another company to get a hit product sure looks like an easy way to make this show up. However, the extremely successful Cisco has just proved that this may certainly be a risky manner to do things.
Their purchase of the Flip video camera product line turned wrong in several ways. Although the product was warm once they sold it, the destiny was already getting cloudy as smartphones kept getting smarter and inexpensive. The lack of any compelling high-end capabilities or social networking tie-ins decreased purchaser interest in carrying this greater digital machine. Finally, Cisco failed to know that an awful lot about the purchaser market they have been stepping into.
It all comes down to doing the primary product manager homework that we’ve got all been taught to do in the cease. You need to check the market and recognize what need they are trying to fill. Then you want to test your product and make a few hard choices as to how you are going to fill that want higher than absolutely everyone else. It price Cisco over US$500M to analyze this lesson, allow’s desire that the rest of people can study from their mistake.