It’s been a great week at Cisco Marketing Velocity in Cannes, and we hope you’ve been following all the action on the @partnervelocity and @cisco_channels Twitter handles, as well as here.

During the event, we celebrated Cisco’s Best Integrated Marketing Campaign awards, recognizing some of the most successful marketing campaigns delivered by Cisco partners all over the world. Each winner was judged by region and evaluated based on utilization of Cisco resources, creativity and innovation, business impact, and overall alignment to Cisco, including technology and architecture messaging.

Please join me in congratulating the 19 winners, pictured below with Cisco’s top channel executives.

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Tags: Best Integrated Marketing Campaign, Cannes, Cisco, Marketing Velocity, partner

It’s a complex world of ecosystem partnerships out there, and it’s important to remember that while technology providers such as Cisco and Microsoft compete in areas such as collaboration and unified communications, they’re also tightly aligned in areas such as data center, where there’s a huge opportunity for Cisco and Microsoft partners to take joint solutions to market.

Cisco and Microsoft took another step in that alignment last week, thanks not only to the integration of Cisco Unified Data Center architecture with Microsoft Fast Track solutions, but also joint marketing and other activities to enable partners that sell both companies’ data center technologies.

The integration itself is a compelling one. Microsoft customers, for example, will be able to have programmatic access to the Cisco Unified Computing System, which gives them a lot more insight and control into how their Cisco Unified Data Center assets work in concert with Windows server and application software. (Here are some more of the details, including specifics on Cisco Nexus 1000V and Cisco UCS.)

Also new is that Cisco will offer several Fast Track solutions that provide customers a reference architecture using technology from Cisco and EMC, under the VSPEX architecture, or from Cisco and NetApp, under the FlexPod architecture. Both of those reference designs have been validated for Microsoft’s Private Cloud Fast Track program. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, Cisco UCS, data center, FlexPod, Microsoft Fast Track, partner, private cloud, Scalability Experts, vspex

Cisco Marketing Velocity is an event like no other. It was launched with the idea of being an exclusive and unique event, targeting Cisco partners interested in innovative marketing techniques. Over the last few years, it’s become so much more as top partner executives increasingly see the value of top-flight marketing and engagement as part of their value proposition to customers.

There will always be healthy debate about the best techniques, tips and tricks – especially with how technology is changing the way we communicate. But strong marketing and even stronger customer engagement wins business, builds your brand, and keeps you connected in a world where customers don’t lack for information. You need to do everything you can to stay ahead of paradigm shifts and new competition for your business.

Next week’s Marketing Velocity, which officially kicks off in Cannes, France, on Tuesday, is the seventh such event hosted by Cisco, and we’re very excited to welcome over 200 partners representing 44 countries where Cisco does business.

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Tags: Cannes, Cisco, Cisco partner marketing, Marketing Velocity, partner, Sherri Liebo

By the year 2015, connected mobile devices will overtake desktop usage and Wi-Fi access traffic will surpass wired access traffic. From 2012 to 2017, mobile data will grow 13-fold. Looking at statistics like these, it’s clear that mobility isn’t just another trend or hot topic – it’s a fundamental transformation of how businesses and their employees access information and accomplish work. And it’s creating more opportunities for Cisco partners to engage with customers than ever before.

But the mobility opportunity is more than just a discussion of one or two technologies. A true mobility conversation includes examining your customers’ mobile workforce strategies and taking a solutions-based approach to increasing worker productivity.

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Tags: BYOD Smart Solution, Cisco, edison peres, jabber, mobility, partner, vxi

This is the fourth blog in the Cisco Partner Talent series, helping partners attract, develop, and retain the right people with the right skills at the right time. Last month’s blog discussed the importance of “emotional” onboarding. This month’s blog post goes into detail about stage four of the Cisco Fit4Talent Employee Lifecycle: Learning and Development.

It’s hard to predict the future, but one thing is for sure: technology will continue to evolve and your business will, too. The question is: will you still be able to beat your competition as the industry shifts and the rules change?

The answer may lie in your people. Are you offering them the training they need to succeed? Just as important, are you seeing a solid ROI from those offers? A recent article available to Cisco partners sheds light on these questions and more.

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Tags: Cisco, Cisco Fit4Talent, partner