The movie industry has the Oscars, the music industry the Grammys, but what about the IT industry? How do we recognize the top performers, the stars, and those behind the scenes making the magic happen? One could argue that CRN’s Top 100 is about as close to a channel award shows as you can get, minus the red carpet designer gowns and tearful acceptance speeches.

This year’s CRN awards are out and we’re happy to report that several Cisco executives were recognized on the Top 100 list:

• Rob Lloyd in the category of “Channel Advocates”
• Edison Peres in the category of “Channel Sales Leaders”
• Keith Goodwin in the category of “Channel Services Leaders”
• Chuck Robbins in the category of “Channel Strategists”
• John Chambers in the category of “Influential”

The awards were based on nominations from solution providers who rank executives based on a number of criteria: channel influence, effectiveness and visibility, as well as business and sales impact. CRN also factored in channel sales volume, channel investment and resources, channel advocacy and visibility, and performance in UBM Channel research projects with a panel of UBM Channel editors making the final ruling.

Thank you for voting for Cisco in these awards. We’re proud to see that a number of partners made it to the list as well and congratulate the winners.

Of course, what would an award be without an acceptance speech?

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Tags: award, channel, chuck robbins, Cisco, crn, edison peres, john chambers, keith goodwin, partner, rob lloyd, top 100

No, we’re not stalking you--well, maybe a little--but in an effort to share what our partners are doing, we scoured the Web to find your blogs, the videos you’re posting, your new initiatives, charities you support, awards, and your contests. This is part of a regular series we’ll be posting recapping what you’re doing. (Be sure to let us know if we missed anything.)

So here’s a list of some interesting Cisco partner happenings from the past couple of weeks.

Cloud Solutions Video Demonstrate Value to Customers
We all know customers are asking for cloud solutions. Logicalis has posted a video about its cloud solutions using Cisco technology that walks through its offering, which is scalable and leverages virtualization to provide elasticity and scalability.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrvRFEspvgg

Collaboration Solutions for Growing Companies Read More »

Tags: blackbox, blue water, business communications, Cisco, crn, emulex, global knowledge, logicalis, netapp, red hat, var guy

It’s no secret that we’re looking to simplify things at Cisco, streamline, provide stronger marketing support for partners, and increase partners’ profitability. 

Now, new in-depth coverage from CRN gives more detail around the changes based on discussions with Rob Lloyd, EVP of Cisco’s WW Operations.

Here’s a quick recap and links to the coverage:

Cisco Gets Back To Business
Years from now, Cisco Systems’ landmark restructuring could be viewed as a highly profitable sales game changer that effectively squelched the rising competitive threat from from aggressive competitors like Hewlett-Packard, Juniper Networks, and Brocade.

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Tags: changes, Cisco, crn, marketing, profits, rob lloyd, sales, simplify, streamline

CRN recently sat down with Cisco Chairman CEO John Chambers, SVP Channels Edison Peres, SVP Services Karl Meulema, SVP Small Business Ian Pennell and numerous other executives across Cisco to create a remarkable set of feature stories published in this month’s print edition.

The feature stories examine everything from Cisco’s architectural strategy to the success Cisco has had within the small business market to the hottest emerging opportunities for the channel to John Chambers’ vision for partners.

“The architecture play, as Cisco sees it, is all-encompassing, with the cloud as the next frontier. It extends from network core to network edge – data center to mobile device – and serves as an organizing principle for everything from switches and routers to video, servers, wireless access points and security. Cisco can, and does, do them all. And what Chambers is asking partners to do isn’t to be everything to everyone and attempt to sell everything but, in essence, see the architectural forest for the product trees and map the way they sell Cisco to that strategy.” – CRN, Cisco’s Chambers: Architecture Is The Future

Read all the stories and view the videos and slide shows:

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Tags: channels, crn, data center, partners, smb