Cisco to pick up Pure Digital for £407m

Cisco has announced its intention to buy Pure Digital, the makers of the popular Flip Video low-cost camcorders.

In a statement on Thursday, Cisco senior vice president Ned Hooper said the $590m (£407m) acquisition was "key to Cisco's strategy to expand [its] momentum in the media-enabled home and to capture the consumer market transition to visual networking".

"This acquisition will take Cisco's consumer business to the next level as the company develops new video capabilities and drives the next generation of entertainment and communication experiences," Hooper said.

In the same statement, Pure Digital chief Jonathan Kaplan praised Cisco's "passion for video" and claimed Cisco's "global scale and tremendous technology expertise" would help Pure Digital "quickly expand and enrich the Flip Video experience".

Pure Digital will become part of Cisco's consumer business group, which also includes the Linksys home networking, audio and media-storage business.

Speculation that Cisco was preparing to buy up companies has been circulating since early February, when the company said it planned to sell $4bn in bonds, in a bid to increase its cash reserves.

Pending the usual regulatory approval, the Pure Digital acquisition is expected to go through in the fourth quarter of this year.