Cisco gets aggressive about small businesses & UC

During hard times, you run faster to keep pace,' keeping that mantra in mind,

in its three day Partner Summit, Cisco unveiled one offering after the other for

various business segments. Whether it was unified communication or small

business, a big solutions provider or a reseller they unveiled products,

trainings and new partner programs. The partner summit had something for

everyone.

Focus Small Business



While elaborating about the importance of small business (SB), Rick Moran,

VP-Small Business Networking, Cisco said, “Small businesses are essential since

70 percent of all new jobs that are created worldwide are done in this segment.

Also SBs are able to capitalize on economic growth faster than any large

company."

Adding further Ian Pennel, Sr VP-SB Technology, Cisco said, “In the SB

segment one size does not fit all. That is the reason why we have more than 100

products already available as our offering for the segment. And to add further

value proposition for our partners, we are launching new products under Cisco SB

Pro series and all the Linksys products are being rebranded as Cisco SB

products.”

The new Small Business Pro line-up includes the ESW 500 Series switch and the

SPA8800 IP Telephony gateway, which allows customers to connect their open

source IP PBX to existing analogue phones and fax machines. A new introduction

in the SB series is PVC300 IP camera.

Coinciding with the launch, Cisco also doubled rebate amounts for SMB

accredited partners and introduced a Small Business Performance Accelerator

aimed at improving partner profitability. It also tweaked its training programs

to ensure that partners are in line with Cisco's go-to-market strategy in the

segment.

Announcing special offers for partners and resellers, Andrew Sage, VP-Small

Business Sales Worldwide, Cisco said, “We are looking at giving enhanced

profitability to our sub-distribution and reseller partners. We are announcing

instant discounts of up to five to seven percent on projects which see migration

from Linksys to Cisco SB series products. That apart there are some more

incentive price schemes that we are unveiling. We are also looking at driving

business or live leads to partners from our website. That apart for our partners

we also have a new 'Buy Now' button on specific products on the website which

would give them the advantage of sourcing products at special low prices for a

stipulated period of time.”

Thrust on UC



Day two of the summit saw a focus on technology, and unified communication.

It also saw all the keynote speakers taking a jibe at the newly unveiled HP and

Microsoft Unified Communication tie-up.

In his keynote Don Proctor, Senior VP-Software, Cisco taking a jibe at the

alliance said, “HP and Microsoft's approach lacks networking credibility of its

own. I am doubtful that customers will be willing to make a forklift upgrade

from Cisco existing technology to adopt this new set of solutions.” Proctor also

claimed that the agenda behind the tie-up according to him was that HP and MS

wanted to go direct to the customers and cut the partners out of the immense

opportunity that existed.

To build up its data center offering the company introduced a dedicated data

center partner program and individual certifications to drive take-up of its

unified computing architecture. This was accompanied by the launch of its range

of rack-mounted servers.

The new Data Center Channel Solutions Program is aimed at enabling the

channel to sell standardized offerings using products from Cisco as well as its

data centre alliance partners. It will sit separately from the vendor's Premier,

Silver and Gold go-to-market channel programs.

Cisco has also expanded its Unified Computing Systems products line with a

new range of three rack-mounted servers. To sell the products, partners will

need to sign up to Cisco's new Authorized Partner Program, which involves

completing its DataCenter Network Infrastructure Specialization (DCNI). They

will also need to have previous server experience.

To further push partner profitability in the datacentre, Cisco partners will

now be able to access rebates for selling Unified Computing, storage, switching

and WAN optimization products through its established Value Incentive program

(VIP).

Importance of APAC



On the sidelights outlining the importance of APAC in the scheme of things

Owen Chan, President-Asia Pacific Operations, Cisco said, “There are huge

opportunities in the region for adoption of technology and for using ICT to

enhance the quality of life and productivity. Newly introduced architectural

play and collaboration will help us in the new markets in getting better

foothold. This theater is very important for Cisco as 10 percent of overall

global business for Cisco comes from APAC.”

During its conference the thrust was on partner training and unified

communication. Putting APAC perspective to both Chan added, “In this region we

have trained 3,200 partners face to face and over 4,000 partners have been

trained online by us. As far as UC is concerned, the interest level is very high

and out of the 300 DCNI certified partners that exist worldwide, 100 partners

are from the APAC itself."

Talking about the small business opportunity in the region Chan said, “we

have 17 percent marketshare in the SB segment in APAC and we are very

competitive in this segment. And we are sure that market growth in APAC in this

segment will be much higher than what is being projected for worldwide.”

Elaborating specifically about India Chan said, “When the Indian economy

turns around ITeS is something will see very strong growth.”

Gung-ho about the investments that the Indian government is making in IT

infrastructure he added, "Tapping the options that are now available Cisco has

just signed an MoU with GITA in Gujarat and you will very soon hear of another

such MoU with a significant state in India. Defense is another sector which is

seeing strong investments. My take on the situation is that as a country India

needs to improve its IT infrastructure and transform it but it also needs to get

away from its heavy dependence on ITeS. We as Cisco are going to be bold,

decisive and aggressive in the Indian market.”

(The author was hosted in Boston by Cisco.)