WASHINGTON DC – July 15, 2014:  Today at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Cisco announced a multi-year sales and go-to-market agreement with Microsoft designed to modernize data centers through the delivery and acceleration of integrated solutions.

Building on a rich history of solution development, Cisco and Microsoft will both invest in sales, marketing and engineering resources to drive global alignment, while delivering deeper technology integration across cloud and data center markets. The companies will focus on integrating market leading technologies, including Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS), Cisco Nexus® switching and Microsoft Cloud OS solutions including Windows Server, System Center, SQL Server and Microsoft Azure.

Highlights:

Go-to-Market Alignment:

• Cisco and Microsoft agree to a three-year go-to-market plan focused on transforming data centers through the delivery of integrated solutions for enterprise customers and service providers.
• In year one, the companies will focus on six countries—the United States, Canada, UK, Germany, France, and Australia—with expansion to additional countries in the following years.
• Cisco and Microsoft will align partner incentive programs to accelerate solutions selling via mutual channel partners. 
• Cisco and Microsoft sales teams will work together on cloud and data center opportunities, including an initial program focused on the migration of Windows 2003 customers to Windows 2012 R2 on the Cisco UCS® platform.

Integrated Solutions:

• Integrated solutions will focus on private cloud, server migration, service provider, and SQL Server 2014
• Cisco technologies to include Cisco® UCS, Cisco Nexus switching, Cisco UCS Manager with System Center integration modules, and Cisco PowerTool.
• Cisco-based integrated infrastructure solutions will include FlexPod with NetApp and Cisco Solutions for EMC VSPEX. 
• Microsoft technology includes Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2, PowerShell, Microsoft Azure and SQL Server 2014
• Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure and Cisco InterCloud Fabric to be integrated in the solutions in future releases

Executive Quotes:

Frank Palumbo, Senior Vice President, Global Data Center and Virtualization Sales, Cisco
"From innovative technologies and global brands to specialized channel partners, Cisco and Microsoft have the ingredients to transform the traditional data center. Now we're expanding our long-standing technical partnership with Microsoft with an aggressive global go-to-market and sales initiative. By providing our customers and partners with greater sales alignment and even deeper technology integration we will help them transform their data centers and accelerate the journey to the cloud."

Stephen Boyle, Vice President, Worldwide Enterprise & Partners Group, Microsoft
"Enterprise customers worldwide are betting on Microsoft and Cisco to realize the benefits of our combined cloud and datacenter technologies. Now, together, we're strengthening our joint efforts to help customers move faster, reduce costs and deliver powerful new applications and services for their businesses."

About Cisco
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.

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