Cisco Systems Inc has completed purchase of Flip digital camcorder-maker Pure Digital Technologies on Thursday, making a further step to be a major player in the consumer electronics market.

The world's largest maker of communications networking equipment said on March. 19 it offered $590 million in stock to purchase all of privately held Pure Digital's shares. Cisco expected the acquisition to close in the fourth quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2009, which ends in July. It made it two months after the initial announcement, which is “key to Cisco's strategy to expand our momentum in the media-enabled home and to capture the consumer market transition to visual networking,” said Ned Hooper, senior vice president of Cisco's Corporate Development and Consumer Groups.

Cisco, the maker of switches and routers that power the Internet, used to concentrate on providing connectivity between different products in the home over an IP network. Now with the acquisition of Pure Digital, Cisco is making consumer market transition to visual networking.

Pure Digital, which develops consumer-friendly video solutions with mass-market appeal, had sold more than 2 million units and quickly demonstrated market appeal in the United States by making video simple, accessible and fun, Cisco said on March 19. All Flip Video products come equipped with FlipShare, a best-in-class software that allows users to easily organize and edit videos and then share them instantly on YouTube, MySpace and other popular sharing Web sites.

With the close of the acquisition, the Pure Digital team becomes part of Cisco's Consumer Business Group, which includes Linksys by Cisco home networking, audio and media-storage products. Jonathan Kaplan, chairman and CEO of Pure Digital, becomes senior vice president and general manager of the combined organization, reporting to Ned Hooper, senior vice president, Cisco Corporate Development and Consumer.

Cisco Systems Video