17 March 2008
by Alex Scroxton
Ahead of the April 1 deadline for compliance with Cisco’s Shared Support programme, the vendor has claimed migration to the new Ts&Cs has been "relatively pain-free".
Cisco delayed the original cut-off date several times but as the race to meet the deadline nears the wire Gold Partners have hit out over the difficulties they have faced in supplying the serial numbers of all kit in circulation to qualify for Shared Support.
Arman Khan, divisional director at Maxima Managed Services — which deals with Cisco through Gold Partner Phoenix IT Services — said questions he had been asking for years were still unanswered: "The position has been very abstract and bit of a hot potato. I have never felt there has been clear articulation on the terms of the programme."
"You will not find anything on Cisco’s website with clear guidelines — why is this?" he asked
"It’s a very labour-intensive, management-intensive process," agreed one Gold Partner, who was concerned some firms would not be ready: "The question there is will Cisco penalise them for that?"
Many agreed that those who miss Cisco’s deadline will have only themselves to blame. Darragh Richardson, marketing director at Gold Partner Telindus, said: "We’ve had well over a year to get ready now. We were actively discussing it in late 2006."
Richardson at Telindus believed partners at risk would have large Cisco estates in the SME sector, where businesses were often harder to monitor.
The process of migrating from SIS98 to Shared Support means dealing with grey trading is easier, according to Peter Titmus, Networks First managing director, who nevertheless said the cut-off date was causing mild panic.
"Any kit that is not registered Cisco won’t support. End users could have some serious problems," he added.
John Donovan, managing director of UK and Ireland channels and SMB at Cisco, told MicroScope earlier this month resellers had been given two years to prepare and the process had largely been pain-free (MicroScope 3 March).
