SAN JOSE, Calif., August 15, 2005 - Highlighting its continued momentum in the SMB market, Cisco Systems® today announced that in fiscal year 2005 it reached a new annual order volume high in U.S. distribution. Working with its U.S distribution partners Comstor, Ingram Micro and Tech Data, Cisco successfully completed more than one million orders, which is nearly a 40-percent year-over-year increase and roughly 500 orders per hour.

The millionth order was a Cisco 7960 IP Phone ordered by Tech Data, a leading global provider of IT products, logistics management and other value-added services for deployment by UNICOM, a Cisco Silver Certified Partner based in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

"Distributors are the backbone of our SMB channel strategy and last year when we announced an increased focus on the SMB market we knew that if we executed properly we would see a spike in annual distribution order volume," said John DiLullo, vice president, Worldwide Distribution at Cisco Systems. "However, hitting the million order milestone in a single-year came much quicker than we anticipated and it's due in large part to our distribution partners. They provide personalized ordering services, competitive pricing, and technical pre- and post-sales telephone support for even the smallest customers. We would need to hire an army of people to provide this level of support."

"More than a million orders through distribution is quite a statement. We have definitely seen an increased focus from Cisco on the SMB market and a keen interest to work with us to drive mutual success in this rapidly growing market," said Bob O'Malley, senior vice president, Marketing at Tech Data. "Partners like Marc Davis and his team at UNICOM are also benefiting from seamless pre-sale support provided by Tech Data and Cisco."

Cisco SMB Activities

During the past 18 months, Cisco has made numerous advancements targeted at the small and medium-sized businesses, including the introduction of:

• 30 new SMB-focused products over a 12-month period, three times more than any other year
• SMB-Select partner designation, which in less than a year has 1,200 channel partners enrolled
• SMB Support Assistant, a support services offering tailored for the SMB market
• Commercial Easy Lease, an SMB leasing program with reduced deal-size threshold for participation and a simplified contract process
• Opportunity Incentive Program (OIP), a deal registration program that rewards channel partners for securing incremental SMB business, and currently has 8,000 registered deals worth more than $1 billion (list price).
• SMB-Class solutions, which combine Cisco products with support services, financing, applications and training