Cisco Acquires Pure Digital

Pure Digital is the maker of Flip Video cameras, very affordable video cameras. They have released a new high definition version too. One of the reason for their popularity besides the low price is that you can directly hook up on USB and upload the video to the sharing sites. Cisco has just completed a deal to acquire the company.

Combine it with the announcement that they are moving into the blade server space with their California offerings and it starts to look like these are bets against the recession by diversifying the portfolio. Thy'll have to go head to head against companies like IBM, Sun and so on. So the product they are going to offer better be good. Not only that, to be able to break into existing market they'll have to offer very clear differentiating features on their products. Interestingly IBM seems to be bent on acquiring Sun for a price of somewhere between $6.5 to $8.x billions!

Both are growth areas despite the recession. Particularly the video segment, the video share segment is growing hugely. Servers also should be growing. There's speculation Cisco is interested in personal/home video conferencing. Let's see how all this plays out!