Apple to Flip Off Cisco With New iPods
Cisco’s acquisition of Pure Digital, developer of the Flip digital video camera, may prove an ill-timed one. For while the Flip currently dominates the market that it largely created, it’s about to be taken to the mat by a new and formidable rival: Apple.
In a research note issued this week, Canaccord analyst Peter Misek speculates that Apple (AAPL), which recently debuted an iPhone capable of shooting and editing video, plans to bring the same functionality to the iPod.
“We believe Apple is now targeting to enter the low-end camcorder market by adding this functionality into its iPod lineup,” he writes. “…We believe Apple will unveil various iPod versions with camcorder functionality. We believe this will drive sales not only for traditional MP3 players, but as a new competitive dynamic to the lower end camcorder market that is now dominated by Flip line of digital camcorders.”
Misek sees such a move giving a nice boost to iPod sales, which, as Apple revealed earlier this week, have been declining a bit. “On anticipation of this we have markedly raised our iPod growth assumptions and have raised our iPod shipment forecast from 50 million to 65 million units.”
And what of Cisco (CSCO)? What would the transformation of the iPod into a point-and-shoot camcorder mean for the Flip? Certainly not good things. Who’d want to carry two devices for music and video capture when they could carry just one?
