Cisco Systems’ decision this past week to shut down its Flip video camera business generated plenty of attention because of its implications on multiple levels for the networking company and the IT industry. Here are a few of my perspectives on the meaning of this event and the lessons to be learned.

Cisco deserves credit for the boldness of its acquisition of Pure Digital, the maker of the Flip camera, in 2009 and its equally brave decision to walk away from the over $590 million investment (acquisition, development and marketing costs) in a two year span. It had hoped to use the Flip camera and other home entertainment products as catalysts for additional consumer demand for its network connectivity capabilities and its service providers’ transmission services. Although Cisco didn’t sell as many Flip cameras as it hoped, it certainly can be credited to contributing the rise in video transmission … Read More »

My travels this week have taken me from Miami to San Francisco, for Parallels Summit and Pacific Crest Securities’ Emerging Technology Summit to hear and see the latest developments in the ‘clouds’.

In Miami, I witnessed the emergence of a key new player in the rapidly evolving cloud computing industry. Parallels is not a new company, but it has recently realigned its various corporate capabilities into a singular focus on cloud computing enablement.

The company is specifically targeting the vast community of service providers — hosting companies, VARs and telcos — that are supporting the IT needs of small businesses with limited or no IT staff.

In short, Parallels is seeking to help these service providers replicate the success of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the mainstream small business marketplace.

Although AWS has found a very receptive audience among start-ups and enterprise developers, it hasn’t generated much interest with mainstream small businesses which lack … Read More »