SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 22, 2000 - Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) announced today its "Value Readiness" tool designed to help its channel partners successfully evaluate and evolve their business models and take advantage of opportunities in the Internet Economy. Cisco's Value Readiness tool, will be introduced at the Cisco Partner Summit 2000 in Las Vegas, a worldwide gathering of more than 3,000 attendees.

"We want to empower our partners to excel and profit in their markets," said Tom Mitchell, vice president of Worldwide Channels at Cisco. "By helping our partners know their strengths and add value, we are collaborating to deliver more benefits to the end-customer."

The "Value Readiness" tool poses a series of 50 questions created to measure and evaluate a channel partner's ability to engage in more services-led selling and deliver superior customer value. A channel partner's "Value Readiness" score will indicate how prepared a company is to maximize its opportunities.

"Our customers are expecting more from their relationship with our company," said Mark Zerbe, president and CEO at Kent Electronics. "Cisco's 'Value Readiness' tools are equipping resellers to identify a business strategy and value roadmap that can leveraged to exceed customer needs."

"The "Value Readiness" tool represents a culmination of interactions with more than four thousand partners worldwide," said Tom Stevenson, vice president of Global Partners at Cisco Systems. "We are delighted to be able to scale this resource to reach a broader base of our channel partners."

Cisco provides channel partners with many resources for improving their "Value Readiness" score. Cisco's Value Compass, for example, is an e-learning tool that offers lessons for channel partners to focus on the areas they need to improve for added customer value. Other resources include strategies for success, business and marketing tactics and finance options.

Cisco can also make recommendations for allocating resources to train and educate partner's employees. Another suggestion Cisco makes is collaboration with other channel partners to provide complete end-to-end solutions.

"Value Readiness" represents one resource of many available to channel partners through Cisco's "Selling Value" program - aimed at providing channel partners with customer-focused business models that integrate hardware, software and life cycle services. The "Value Readiness" tool is available at: www.cisco.com/go/sellingvalue