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Bill Shields

Senior Product Manager

UCS Solutions Product Management

Bill joined the Cisco family in November 2010 as a Marketing Manager on the Cisco UCS Product Marketing team. As a Sr. Marketing Manager, his duties include managing the development Cisco’s UCS TCO/ROI tools; providing sales team and partner tool support; server competitive analysis and positioning; is the marketing manager for UCS X-Series Modular Servers and UCS C-Series Rack Servers. Additionally, he provides support for Intersight. In 2025, he went back to his product management roots and is the Sr. Product Manager for FlexPod (converged infrastructure solution with NetApp) and Rubrik solutions. Prior to joining Cisco, Bill was previously with Compaq/HP in a number of roles including almost seven years in server options product management and ProLiant Essentials Software training development and delivery. Bill’s certifications include a Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB) from the American Society for Quality and Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute. He earned his MBA in Marketing from the University of Houston.

Articles

Cisco Volunteers Helping to Feed the Hungry

1 min read

Little known to most people, including residents of Houston, Texas, there is a peanut butter cannery here, and it is capable of producing over 1 million jars of peanut butter a year. Thanks to the coordination efforts of Terry Edge, a Cisco Channels Manager, two teams of Cisco employee volunteers produced 12,595 jars — 21,254 pounds — of peanut butter this […]

December 20, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS – Year End TCO Wrap-up

1 min read

As the year comes to a close, I wanted to revisit the economics of Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). Cisco UCS has fantastic technology. Technology that technical decision makers are demanding. But what about business decision makers? The question for them is how will UCS save them money?

October 17, 2013

DATA CENTER

Now is the time to refresh to Cisco UCS!

2 min read

Intel estimates1 that one-third of the servers in production are more than four years old. At first, one might think that it is great to get this much service out of a capital investment, but the operational costs to run these outdated servers would pay for a complete technology refresh increasing performance and reliability while […]

October 6, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS vRack on Full Display at PASS Summit

1 min read

Cisco is proud to be a Platinum sponsor and exhibitor at PASS Summit this year. If you aren’t familiar with PASS Summit, it “is the world’s largest, most-focused, and most-intensive conference for Microsoft SQL Server and BI professionals.” Gary Serda has done an excellent job in detailing what the Cisco UCS team will be sharing […]

September 18, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS Changing the Economics of the Datacenter at Oracle OpenWorld

1 min read

Next week at Oracle OpenWorld, I will be giving an abbreviated theater presentation on how Cisco UCS is changing the economics of the datacenter (full presentation below). If you will be at OOW, please stop by the Cisco booth (#1021 – Monday 9/23 @ 12:30pm, Tuesday 9/24 @ 4pm, & Wednesday 9/25 @ 2:30pm) for […]

September 13, 2013

DATA CENTER

A Brief IDF Recap from a First Time Attendee Representing Cisco UCS

1 min read

Given the diversity of the attendees, I wasn’t sure what to expect at Intel® Developer Forum (IDF) having never been to one before. Now I’m very glad to have the opportunity to discuss our updated blade and rack servers with Intel’s Xeon® E5-2600 v2 series of processors (aka Ivy Bridge v2) with potential customers, analysts, […]

August 19, 2013

DATA CENTER

Redux: Yes, Cisco UCS servers are that good

1 min read

Almost a year ago, I wrote my first blog post detailing what customers have been saying about their UCS experiences in our Case Studies, Solution Briefs, etc. The findings have been updated with the latest studies. While the percentages haven’t changed much, the number of customers reporting similar results (like Cisco’s market share) has gone […]

July 9, 2013

DATA CENTER

Relationships, Relationships, Relationships: Cisco at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference

1 min read

When I think of why technology solution providers should attend Microsoft’s WPC, I decided to pay homage to one of Steve Ballmer’s mantras with my blog title. Last year, at Microsoft’s WPC in Toronto, I was approached by KEMP Technologies (a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner). They gave me an elevator pitch on their products and […]

June 25, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco UCS vs. IBM Flex System: Complexity and Cost Comparison

1 min read

Complexity and Cost Comparison: Cisco UCS vs. IBM Flex System is report recently published by Principled Technologies. They evaluated both the technologies and costs of each solution and found a UCS solution is both less expensive to deploy and less complex to manage than an IBM Flex System. Off all the ways Principled Technologies shows […]