As 2011 comes to a close, what do you think 2012 will bring? We predict it will be the Year of the Cloud!
In this last episode of Partner Update for 2011, Andrew attempts to communicate with the entire CloudVerse, until he learns what it actually is (a set of cloud capabilities that helps our partners build public, private, and hybrid clouds for customers).
What else made the news over the past couple of weeks? We crowned two partners winners of the 25 Words contest for their witty entries, look closely at how Cisco partners are helping to build a fast and secure network to help customer Doss Aviation power fighter jets, learn best practices around Smart Care Services and building better customer relationships, find out how OnPlus can help partners diagnose and fix network issues from virtually anywhere on any device, a services cheat sheet to help build relationships and increase profits, and more.
Tune in and watch our latest newscast covering the top Cisco partner headlines, as always, in under 5 minutes.
Keep reading for links to the top headlines, time stamps so you can find each news item within the video, and more details on each of the stories we covered.
It seems like you can’t open an IT magazine these days without being bombarded by cloud, cloud, cloud. Going to tradeshows you see traditional vendors that have taken their existing solution packages and rebranded them as cloud. For Cisco partners and customers this can be confusing; especially since cloud comes in so many types/flavors: IaaS, SaaS, PaaS, and however people are positioning themselves. When I think of cloud I think it fundamentally boils down to an industrialization/simplification of IT. You focus and clearly define what you as a solution provider are providing, and by doing so, drive out the cost. Look at MS office for email etc. has literally thousands of options or ways to use it, but has a high cost/user/month. Gmail limits those options and by offering it free to everyone, it costs Google an ever decreasing fraction of a dollar/month. The economics are compelling. Customers like economics in their favor and partners get excited when customers want to make a transition.
On Dec 6th Cisco announced CloudVerse – an integrated set of capabilities combining Unified Data Center with Cloud Intelligent Network to deliver Cloud Applications and Services. The beauty of this position is that we aren’t telling our partners, “Thanks, we’ll take it from here!” We’re looking to them to offer this integrated Cisco vision to their customers.
“We’re putting our partners in the position to offer CloudVerse as a portfolio and new cloud capabilities.” As Ralph Nimmergood, VP of WW Channels at Cisco, stated in a CRN article published last week.
Partners are key to our cloud strategy and we’re excited to be on this journey with them.
If someone invited you to a dinner party, but then only allowed you to eat the bread at the table verses the entire meal, chances are, you’d leave feeling pretty hungry.
Applying that analogy--let’s look at how a vendors services model impacts the overall partner-vendor relationship. We all know that services are “meat and potatoes” for solution providers. As a matter of fact, services now represent 40-50% of Cisco channel partners business, up from 20 percent five years ago.
But the reality is that traditional services models don’t allow channel partners to fully participate in the services opportunity. HP is a case in point. HP has a traditional services model, with an army of approximately 200,000 services employees and a “hard deck” where they sell direct to 1,800-2,000 of their largest customers.
Cisco, on the other hand, has approximately 11,000 Services employees and allows partners to participate in the Services opportunity at every level, from the largest global customers to the local small business. Our partners are the extension our Services arm.
Through programs such as Collaborative Professional Services (CPS) and Steps-to-Success, Cisco also has a range of initiatives designed to transfer knowledge gained by Cisco Services to accelerate partner success.
To go back to our original analogy, Cisco allows partners to enjoy the entire meal…and the $49 billion services TAM around Cisco technologies and architectures in FY12 definitely offers some enticing menu options!
To take advantage of this tremendous opportunity, Cisco Services aims to work with partners to deliver new services experiences to customers through its unique sales engagement model, smart services portfolio and partner-centric programs. Now, Cisco is taking the next step forward to further clarify our sales engagement model and drive consistency in the field.
The Global Certification Team is pleased to announce thati the 5940 Embedded Services Router (ESR) has been awarded Common Criteria certification. The 5940 ESR is certified at EAL2+ against the Traffic Filter Firewall in Basic Robustness Environments v1.1. The Cisco 5940 ESR validated for IOS Version: 15.1(2)GC1.
Last week, we held a TweetChat with Cisco’s new Global Partner Marketing VP Amanda Jobbins.
During the hour-long Twitter session, we covered a lot of ground--Amanda’s Partner Marketing priorities, new campaigns for partners, what she heard on her listening tour with partners, and ways that Cisco is helping partners use social media.
We also learned some interesting factoids about Amanda and how she’s adjusting to life in the United States after living in the U.K.
If you missed the chat, we’ve got a recap of what was discussed, including Amanda’s answers to some great audience questions. This is the first of many discussions Amanda plans to have with partners and wants to continue the dialog to ensure that marketing programs reflect what partners need. You can send along questions and comments to her directly @amandajobbins.
We started the chat off with a few interview questions for Amanda to warm up, then answered audience questions:
Q1: What are your key priorities for Cisco Partner Marketing?
@amandajobbins: I have 5 goals: brand/value, online/social communities, marketing enablement, demand marketing, & ecosystem.
Two additional driving principles: communications & partner insight.
Q2: Cloud is the word on everyone’s lips…how are you helping partners market cloud? Read More »
