SAN FRANCISCO – Cisco (Nasdaq: CSC0)and VMware (Nasdaq: VMW)announced yesterday a new joint-initiative to help partners further accelerate their growth and success in the data centre and cloud computing space.
The new channel partner acceleration initiative is designed for partners that are working in the data centre virtualization space. In order to take advantage of the initiatives, partners must be Cisco data centre specialized and must also be authorized to sell VMware solutions.
Among the offerings in the joint initiative are things like training, special bundled offerings, virtualization assessments, demo equipment, online demo labs, and more.
Ralph Nimergood, vice-president of Cisco’s Worldwide Partner Organization, said the new initiative is designed to help partners drive acceleration at a transactional level, by providing enablement, training, incentives and rewards to accelerate VMware and UCS (Unified Computing System) sales in the market.
By the end of next month, a special bundled offering will be made available to partners, which includes the Cisco UCS C250, the Cisco Nexus 1000V distributed virtual software switch, and VMware’s vSphere.
“Our initial roll-out for bundles will be a North American offering at first, but we’ll also be looking to offer this to partners elsewhere too,” Nimergood said.
This initiative is meant to serve as an enablement tool, rather than a certification-type of program, Nimergood explained.
Free online solutions training around Cisco’s UCS and VMware’s vSphere will be available to partners and Cisco partners who complete this training can sell VMware vSphere without having to achieve any additional VMware certifications.
Beginning next month, and through to July of next year, Cisco DCNI (data centre network infrastructure) Specialized channel partners in Canada and the U.S. will be eligible to receive a reimbursement on pre-approved virtualization assessments from Cisco and VMware.
Partners can also take advantage of new demand generation and marketing benefits as part of this initiative, which include resources around customizable campaign tools and seminars.
Nimergood says the new initiative will help Cisco partners better capitalize on market opportunities, in a quicker fashion.
“This initiative enables our mutual partner community to capitalize and accelerate on the market transitions towards data centre virtualization and private clouds,” he explained.
Gary Green, vice-president of global strategic alliances at VMware, said with the launch of this initiative, partners can achieve higher levels of profitability.
“The program is built to show (partners) where the growth opportunities are in the market,” Green said. “This will also show partners how they can achieve more profitability.”
