Cisco partners' fuel delivery of managed services

DQC News Bureau

Bangalore: Cisco has announced the new Cisco managed services channel
program, which is designed to incentivize partners to deliver a wide spectrum of
managed services. This program integrates the recently enhanced Cisco 'powered
program framework', enabling partners to accelerate the global development and
delivery of managed services.

According to Edison Peres, VP- Worldwide Channels at Cisco, "Based on a
consistent, global framework, the Cisco managed services channel program will
allow regional channel partners, service providers and systems integrators to
more easily meet our customers' growing demand for managed services in
established and emerging markets."

The program serves to drive global consistency through predictable offerings
and in-country product access and gives them tools to offer consistent services
to global customers based on the customer requirements.

In addition, the program provides financial rewards for partners that build
and sell services that utilize the network to address a customer's business need
and offers joint marketing and branding opportunities for managed service
providers that deliver premium services. The program currently includes
AT&T, CDW Berbee, Bell Canada, BT, Calence, Dimension Data, Getronics,
NetStar, Sprint, TELUS, Verizon Business and VSNL.

"Cisco's managed services channel program (MSCP) defines a framework under
which Cisco can collaborate with the SP partners and jointly go to market based
on managed services offerings," said Avinash Purwar, VP, Channels, India and
SAARC.

"VSNL has decided to build a dedicated managed services operation from
ground up to deliver enhanced customer experience and operational
excellence," said Vinod Kumar, president, Global Data Solutions at VSNL.
"We have seen explosive growth in managed services for small to
medium-sized businesses, as well as large enterprises around the world. The
Cisco managed services channel program helps us to support our service and
delivery operations in India and provide managed services globally."

The Cisco managed services channel program rewards partners for the relative
value of services delivered to customers. The program includes three managed
service program levels, Cisco powered managed service, strategic managed
service, and legacy managed service. The premium Cisco powered managed service
level currently includes designations for connectivity, unified communications,
security, mobility and data center services.