KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - April 26, 2004 - Cisco Systems® and Microsoft today announced that they intend to bring their global collaboration in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) sector to Malaysia. First announced in February at Cisco's Worldwide Partner Summit, the joint-effort is based on Cisco and Microsoft's respective expertise in technology, services and applications to help accelerate SMB customer and channel partner success.
Building on the companies' prior collaboration in areas such as data center architectures and IP telephony, and their shared vision for encouraging new levels of productivity and profitability for SMBs, Cisco and Microsoft aim to collaborate on SMB solution development and optimization, marketing, and channel programs.
"Cisco and Microsoft in Malaysia share many of the same SMB channel partners and customers. To further energize the synergies, we have jointly developed pre-tested, pre-configured architectures and solutions that will help drive partner success and make it easier for them to provide integrated solutions to their SMB customers," says Johnson Khoo, managing director, Malaysia, Cisco Systems.
Added Butt Wai Choon, managing director for Microsoft Malaysia: "We want to share the knowledge we have each gained from working with SMB customers, and through our respective channels, use this knowledge to offer robust and cost effective solutions that help our customers increase productivity and realize their full potential."
Cisco and Microsoft have teamed to develop reference architecture blueprints for Microsoft's IT Solutions for Small and Medium Businesses. The collaboration will help enable channel partners to provide Cisco industry-leading highly secure networking infrastructure and Microsoft award-winning applications to their customers.
The blueprints are being developed to effectively and efficiently meet the needs of SMB customers with 500 or less employees. The architectures will serve as business growth resources that will help drive Cisco and Microsoft channel partner profitability.
The two companies have teamed to introduce a joint product offering specifically designed to increase the productivity and security of growing businesses. The offering is based upon the Cisco 831 Broadband Router and Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Standard Edition. The joint Cisco and Microsoft offering will allow channel partners to deliver proven solutions to help SMBs increase their business efficiency through server-based solutions for e-mail, fax, database, shared Internet access and remote management and support. It will also help SMBs maintain the security of their IT systems, reducing the threat of losing valuable intellectual capital to hackers while maintaining the confidentiality and integrity of the data within their network.
The integrated Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Standard and Cisco 831 Router offering is available until June 15, 2004 at an estimated retail price of RM3,800. The solution will be delivered through qualified Cisco and Microsoft channel partners.
