28 January 2008
by Alex Scroxton
Cisco partners have hit back at complaints from customers that they lack sufficient unified communications (UC) skills and are slowing adoption.
At the vendor’s Networkers Forum 2008, one user, who asked to remain anonymous, said that accredited partners’ lack of knowledge in deploying an application meant he was left to work out installation issues alone.
This has been noted by the networking giant and at the same event, Nick Watson, vice-president of Enterprise Business Cisco UK & Ireland, said customers were increasingly after a full service approach to the technology they buy.
"That requires a different approach from Cisco. Are we perfect? No, we’re certainly not perfect. We’re very aware this is something we need to get better," he admitted.
The partner conference in April will be used as a platform for Cisco to address the skills gap so that integrators can deliver new applications to customers.
But in response partners have defended their position in the market, although Peter Halls, CEO at Affiniti, agreed the onus was on the channel to play a part in developing skills and participating in training.
"We’ve had a lot of people being trained by Cisco on UC… It’s like any emerging technology; the vendors create the market and it’s up to us to keep pace," he told MicroScope.
Recurve Technologies director Colin Symington rejected the complaints.
"I find most IT managers have some form of Cisco qualification," he said, adding that many IT managers in medium-sized installs did not want help in setting up Cisco.
EuroLAN managing consultant Keith Humphreys believed the issue didn’t just affect Cisco.
"Vendors generally have failed to educate partners. Cisco is really pre-empting this by doing a lot of work around HR," he said.
He added that training was not simple: "What I pick up from partners is that for the SMB Select guys, the cost of [networking certification] CCIE is often more than they pay their MD".
A recent report by analyst firm Gartner said Cisco lagged behind many of its competitors over how well it educates partners about new release technologies and this cuts across support, professional services and training.
"We continually hear that Cisco is becoming an applications company. But its messaging and enablement of its partners do not show evidence of sufficient knowledge transfer to enable its partners to support Cisco’s new model," the report stated.
