Cisco announced the
commencement of its Cloud Partner Program for partners to effectively monetize
the opportunities in the multi-billion dollar cloud computing space.
Cisco becomes the
first infrastructure OEM to offer a cloud partner program, which rewards
partners not only to build clouds on Cisco infrastructure but also to act as
cloud providers and resell cloud services. The
new program provides partners flexibility and empowers them to maximize their profitability
by offering their own brand of Cloud Services Practice that is powered by
Cisco.
Cisco’s Cloud
Partner Program will enable partners to be adequately prepared to meet the
large-scale demand for adoption of cloud services by customers in the coming
years,” said B Raghavendran, vice president, Partner Organization at Cisco
India & SAARC.
This is a first in
the industry where the designation is built on the validation of both Cisco and
Non-Cisco competencies necessary to build a cloud. The partner will see an
additional return on their Cisco and partner investments by leveraging them
into a role they can play in the Cloud market. We expect to see the first set
of partners being certified on the program, before the end of 2011,”
Raghavendran added.
Cisco is looking at
launching the program targeting the entire country. The company is yet to fix
any target number for partners. We are evaluating the market. We are already
in touch with a few partners and received encouraging response,” Raghavendran
added.
The program aims to
supplement the investments in certifications from Cisco so partners can
leverage the cloud opportunity at a faster pace and lower cost. Under the aegis
of this program, Cisco will also offer intellectual property and training on
best practices to help partners increase their expertise in the cloud computing
segment.
Additional benefits
of this program include branding offer creation support, through the Cisco, our
Jumpstart” financing, market development funding and programmatic access to
channel partners as a route to market. Cisco will supplement this thrust by
aligning its sales policies internally and providing branding assistance to
cloud partners, to sharpen their marketing capabilities.
Cloud Computing has emerged
as one of the top technology priorities for information technology
professionals according to a study by market researcher Gartner. The study
estimates that nearly 50 percent of all CIO’s expect to shift the majority of
their applications/infrastructures to the cloud by 2015.
By TelecomLead.com
Team
editor@telecomlead.com