17 April 2008
by Alex Scroxton
Cisco resellers have voiced concern that the vendor is focused too much on buzzwords and Web 2.0 hype at the expense of substance in a series of announcements made at its recent Partner Summit in Hawaii.
The programme enhancements centred on connecting partners to each other, but dealers suggested they failed to address issues resellers want fixed.
Among the enhancements is a Partner Exchange programme in Cisco’s existing virtual Partner Space, designed to allow partners and customers to network in a web 2.0 environment.
"If I want to find another company because I need their professional skills, after 28 years in the business I’ve learned how to pick up a telephone and that’s kept me profitable," said one disgruntled dealer.
"It would be great if Cisco spoke to us instead of telling us how to speak to each other," he added.
Partner Exchange was introduced after a survey conducted by Illuminas Research and Cisco suggested collaboration in the channel generated 31 per cent of partner revenues.
This figure is said to be growing 15 per cent a year and the vendor claimed an average partner worked with eight others on a regular basis.
John Donovan, Cisco managing director UK and Ireland channels, warned that even if the social networking angle was seen as trendy, it was now a fact of life.
"The availability of these tools is critical for students entering university and the same is true for business. A lot of people just don’t use email anymore. They regard it as old-fashioned," he said.
Donovan believed offering social networking style tools for resellers would help attract graduates into the industry.
"If the industry is regarded as a bit stuffy and old-fashioned, graduate quality is lower. This initiative makes it a more exciting area to work in," he added.
Attracting and retaining graduate skills was a key talking point at the summit and the other major announcement was the launch of a programme for resellers to attract skilled employees.
Scheduled to launch during the second quarter of calendar 2008, the Talent Network will replace the existing Partner Talent Portal and will use what Cisco describes as "advanced social networking capabilities and interactive video to transform how partners attract, develop and retain employees".
"It’s well documented that the skills shortage is a big issue but in developed markets, it’s more acute," said Donovan. "In the UK and Ireland, it’s a top three issue that our partners are calling out."
Brighter Connections managing director Darren Stringer hoped the enhancements might bring business benefits to the average reseller, but warned that vendors needed to display more commitment to the long-term success of their initiatives.
"These ideas are always reasonably positive and the commitment from resellers may initially be positive, but where vendors slip up is on inconsistent application of these programmes," he said.
"I can’t afford to wait for them, so my message would be if you’re going to sell a dream to a reseller, don’t bring out a programme with a great fanfare that fizzles out in six to eight weeks."
Highlights of the partner summit
Given Cisco’s oft-stated commitment to green IT, it would have been a phenomenal waste of resources to fly so many partners from across the globe to Hawaii if it had nothing to tell them. While the conference was taking place, the vendor chalked up its 126th acquisition after snapping up the remaining 20 per cent interest in California-based Nuova Systems, a next-generation datacentre product specialist. Cisco had already forked out $70m for 80 per cent of Nuova after initially investing in August 2006.
As part of the acquisition, the vendors have been collaborating behind the scenes to bring the Cisco Nexus 5000 series of datacentre-class switches to market. These form a key part of Cisco’s ‘Datacentre 3.0’ vision to transform the datacentre into a virtualised environment providing access to content on any device.
Cisco has also rolled out an updated version of its Datacentre Networking Infrastructure (DCNI) specialisation to support partner uptake. DCNI 2.0 will recognise partners with a highly qualified datacentre practice. Further help, in the form of the Data Centre Value Incentive Programme, will also be available to resellers that decide to build a network-centric datacentre practice.
