A Game changer occurs when something that is thought about enables competitive advantages that were previously unachievable. Ideas that level the playing field or outpace the competition don’t come along every day. The Cloud is considered a game changer for service providers (SPs) enterprise and consumer customers alike. It’s a solution offering mutual advantage to all participants. There are so many people writing about it that we’re almost all becoming cloud-weary.
But like every good idea, execution is the key. If the Cloud cannot be leveraged by businesses profitably then the scorecard doesn’t go positive - and in the case of service providers the scorecard is based on new revenue generating services, faster ways to get there, new levels of customer satisfaction, new ways to trim costs and new business opportunities.
For enterprises, using an SP or hybrid-Cloud approach offers new ways to cost reduce IT budgets and concentrate limited human capital on their core business offers. Mobile workers and teleworkers, can access resources at their fingertips while branch offices are linked to scalable, virtually unlimited resource pools via the network.
Cloud offers SMBs a way to compete head-to-head with Fortune 1000s using new pay-as-you-go (or a pay-as-you-grow) business models. Applications that were unaffordable are now available on-demand.
Cisco Unified Service Delivery is helping Service Providers change their game when it comes to the Cloud. Service providers need a flexible, dynamic solution that enables on-demand service delivery. They need to integrate pools of resources within, across and beyond the data center and Cisco USD is the industry’s most complete end-to-end solution. The ability to manage a cloud solution from the data center all the way to the end point while applying the right QoS and security and meeting numerous other parameters will be critical metrics for success.
There was no shortage of entertainment and music at Cisco’s 15th Partner Summit last week, with New Orleans’ finest bands and musicians playing for live and virtual audiences.
The action-packed event featured big news for partners, keynotes from Cisco’s top executives, breakout speakers, magicians, theater sessions, parties, a live auction, and generous donations from partners and Cisco are helping to rebuild homes and lives in New Orleans.
We put together a short video slideshow with pictures highlighting so many of the great moments from Cisco Partner Summit 2011. Enjoy! (And please share your own photos on our Facebook page.)
If you missed any of the news from last week, here are all of the big announcements for partners. Read More »
Welcome to our government blog! I hope you will become an active participant and visitor to this community. Each week, we will explore various topics that are top of mind in government. I encourage you to share, comment, and probe so that we can have genuine discussions about what is happening in this ever-changing industry.
The experts on our team, who bring together decades of experience in advanced technologies and government know-how, will be blogging about cloud, cybersecurity, security, teleworking, innovations in government , and much more. If you have a topic of interest related to government and technology that you would like to discuss, please comment on this post. We’d love to hear from you!
The Cloud Opportunity
With Cisco Partner Summit happening in New Orleans this week there has been a lot of important news with the announcement of the Cloud Partner Program that enables and encourages Cisco Partners to develop and deliver cloud services being at the top of the list. You can follow the action on the Cisco Channels Facebook page. This announcement might have you wondering what the size of the market for cloud services is and what Enterprise organizations are thinking as they consider the move to services from the cloud.
At Cisco we had these same questions as we were making investment decisions in the systems and solutions that enable organizations to build a cloud service delivery architecture. As a result the Cisco® Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) conducted research that included interviews with enterprise IT decisions makers and key subject matter experts. The study showed that enterprises across many sectors are seriously considering cloud computing. Based on direct feedback from enterprise decision makers, Cisco IBSG estimates that close to 12 percent of enterprise workloads will run in the cloud by the end of 2013 and that this will yield a market for public-cloud services of approximately US$43 billion. Organizations have a few things to consider as they make this migration to the cloud.
Yesterday partners got to enjoy lively music during the General Session, but today, it was all about magic…and the cloud. Technology magician Marco Tempest treated partners to magic tricks using lights and a display, and he was followed onto the stage by Michael Capellas, CEO of VCE, and Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s CTO. The theme was how to impact innovation, and both Michael and Padma highlighted the Cisco technologies that can help partners to differentiate.
Michael kicked off his talk with the statement that “cloud is not marketing hype,” but in fact will be a foundational part of the IT industry for the next three to five years. Michael sprinkled interesting facts throughout his presentation—for instance, did you know that 200 million users connect to Facebook via mobile devices? Or that 60 billion instant messages are sent per day? According to Michael, stats like those demonstrate that the consumer has already adopted the cloud, and it will spread into the enterprise.
This will open up a whole new world of possibilities for partners, as the world of applications that will be accessed by lots of different devices will change. Businesses will need new applications, location-based applets, new forms of integration, analytics and behavioral analysis, new development networks, development clouds, and software as a service. And all of those will be supported by the cloud. Michael concluded his presentation with his “Fearless Forecasts.” Watch out, partners: There will be a $50 billion converged infrastructure market in three years, and private cloud will lead enterprise and public sector opportunities. Read More »
