Cisco Builds Open Partner Ecosystem to Accelerate Industry Transition to Unified Computing
Executives From Accenture, BMC Software, EMC, Intel, Microsoft, and VMware Discuss Data Center Collaboration With Cisco
SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwire - March 16, 2009) - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today unveiled an open,
best-of-breed ecosystem of partners to stimulate innovation, enhance
service delivery, and accelerate the market adoption of Unified Computing, an
evolutionary data center architecture which unites compute, network,
storage access, and virtualization resources in a single cohesive system.
Virtualization is bringing about a significant industry transition and
exciting market opportunities around the world. Cisco is collaborating
with industry leaders to help customers navigate this transition to
optimize virtualization, reduce overall data center cost, and improve
business agility. Cisco's open, global partner ecosystem spans a broad
spectrum of technology partners, business consulting and systems
integration partners, and channel partners. With the introduction of
the Unified Computing System, Cisco is delivering innovation to the
industry through architecture, technology, partnerships, and services.
Today, during an 11-city Cisco TelePresence™ meeting hosted by company
Chairman and CEO John Chambers, Cisco highlighted its collaboration with
data center industry leaders. Senior executives William D. Green, chairman
and CEO for Accenture; Bob Beauchamp, CEO for BMC Software;
Joe Tucci, chairman, president and CEO for EMC Corp.; Paul Otellini,
president and CEO for Intel;
Bob Muglia, president of Servers and Tools Business for Microsoft; and Paul
Maritz, president and CEO for VMware, discussed how they are working with
Cisco on Unified Computing to benefit Enterprise and Service Provider
customers.
Technology Partners:
Cisco and data center industry leaders have collaborated
extensively to deliver a holistic approach to data center virtualization.
These technology partners are delivering technological and architectural
innovations that unify infrastructure, simplify operations, and amplify
business results.
Cisco has formed advanced collaborative and development relationships
with leading companies across the information technology (IT) industry,
including BMC Software, EMC, Emulex, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, Novell,
Oracle, QLogic, Red Hat, and VMware.
The relationships with BMC Software, EMC, Microsoft, and VMware extend
beyond technical integration to provide services and end-to-end support for
the Unified Computing solution.
Business Consulting and Systems Integration Partners:
To help customers evolve to next-generation data centers through
the power of a Unified Computing architecture, Cisco is expanding its
strategic relationships with key business consulting and global systems
integration partners. These partners are developing integrated solutions
tailored to specific customer needs and collaboratively delivering services
with Cisco.
Cisco has recently expanded strategic relationships with Accenture,
CSC, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and Wipro.
Cisco will initially go to market with a select group of Cisco Data
Center Specialized channel partners that already possess the networking,
compute, virtualization, storage, and integrated services practices to help
customers successfully make the transition to a Unified Computing
architecture.
As customer demand for Unified Computing accelerates, Cisco will enlist
additional channel partners into the new Cisco Unified Computing Authorized
Technology Provider Program.
Cisco has more than 250 highly trained Data Center Specialized channel
partners around the world.
Cisco announced it will develop a channel program designed to enable
and accelerate the sales of tested, validated reference designs
incorporating products from industry-leading data center vendors, including
EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Red Hat, and VMware.
With more than 80 percent of its revenue flowing through its channel
partners, Cisco is one of the IT industry's most channel-centric companies.
Cisco Executive Quotes:
"With today's announcement, Cisco is unleashing the power of virtualization
through Unified Computing, the industry's first unified architecture for
the virtualized data center. We've built an open ecosystem of industry
leaders to help our customers realize the value of this exciting market
transition," said Rob Lloyd, executive vice president designate, Worldwide
Operations for Cisco.
"Time and again, we've seen that orchestrating an open partner ecosystem is
the most effective way to successfully drive major market transitions.
Through world-class partnerships and collaborative service delivery, Cisco
will accelerate the industry evolution to Unified Computing," said Gary
Moore, senior vice president, Advanced Services for Cisco.
Industry Leaders on Unified Computing:
See videos from industry leaders, including:
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