This post is the fourth in a series we’re featuring from Amazon Consulting. Amazon Consulting is a partnering services firm dedicated to helping companies elevate the impact of partnering. The author of this post is Cary Tengler, Director, Client Services.
As Bob Dylan once famously sang, “The times, they are a’changin’.” Recent changes in technology—specifically with cloud computing—have moved technology service providers into an increasingly prominent role in the IT services delivery market.
Many vendors recognized early on the broader value of technology service providers, or TSPs, and created programs to support their role in the partner ecosystem. For instance, “Cisco Powered Network” branding and joint selling efforts have long been a part of Cisco’s service provider strategy. And it appears the rest of the IT vendor community is coming to the same conclusion.
A recent Amazon Consulting survey of 64 global IT vendors found that 70% view service providers as “very strategic” in their go-to-market plans and only 12% of the vendors viewed them as “customers and not partners.” This increased industry focus on TSPs as part of the emerging “cloud channel” makes it imperative that Cisco’s VARs take a closer look at their own cloud services and partnering strategies. Read More »
A little while back I blogged about the Vblock solution for Cisco HCS. This time around I’ve got answers about another solution, Vblock for Cisco Unified Communications, which is designed for delivering hosted services.
To succeed in today’s fast paced, global economy, businesses must be able to communicate and collaborate. This requires access to a range of voice, video, and messaging communication tools. While the essence of communication is to break down barriers, organizations today must contend with the barriers imposed by increasingly complex communications environments. The VCE solution enables rapid deployment of Cisco Unified Communications applications on Vblock Infrastructure Platforms to provide an integrated hardware and software solution that connects people, information, and teams, helping to enable comprehensive and effective collaborative experiences.
Before you keep reading, watch the video Cisco UC “As-A-Service” Offers on Vblock Platform, which provides an overview of the solution, and what customers can expect.
What are the advantages of Vblock? Keep reading for the FAQ. Read More »
Yesterday, fellow Channels blogger Alex Krasne hosted a live Channels Chat video broadcast called Tapping the SMB Opportunity in the Cloud: An Interactive Discussion for Service Providers.
During the broadcast, Steve Hilton, Principal Analyst at Analysys Mason, and Ellen Berlan, Director, Global Service Provider SMB at Cisco shared cloud trends and offered advice on how Service Providers can capitalize on the growing market within SMBs. Steve also offered several recommendations, from how Service Providers need to approach the growing cloud market, to the ways in which Service Providers can launch a cloud offering.
Didn’t get a chance to catch the broadcast live? Here’s a replay. (You can also watch the replay on our Ustream page or on the Channels Facebook Page.)
For those of you who prefer to read about the broadcast, we have a text summary below with timestamps to identify key topics. We also have Ellen and Steve’s answers to audience questions submitted via Twitter. Read More »
Last week at Cisco Live in Las Vegas, the VCE booth was abuzz with technical discussions, demos, and lots of talk about IT flexibility, virtualization, and hosted services.
As Vblock solution for Cisco HCS is relatively new, you may have a few questions, which I’ll address in my FAQ below.
Before you keep reading, watch the video “Cisco HCS “As-A-Service” Offers on Vblock Platform” which provides an overview of the solution, what customers can expect, and detailed specs.
What is the advantage of Vblock? Keep reading for the Vblock FAQ. Read More »
Over the past several years, a lot of vendors have established a variety of designations aimed at giving channel partners a demonstrable seal-of-approval for specific technologies or market expertise. In a world where channel partners need to differentiate against their competitors on something more than price, these “specializations” or “specialties” go a long way towards helping customers weed through the various IT offerings based on training, experience, and oftentimes customer satisfaction. Typically, all three of those qualities are necessary in order to “get badged,” as the partners often call it.
But how important should those badges be to you, as the IT decision-maker in a small business? The truth is, it depends.
If you are using advanced applications, and require high levels of security, run complex databases and are heavily dependent on things like CRM tools, unified communications capabilities and such, then I would say that the case for using a specialized partner is a strong one.
