BOSTON – Cisco Partner Summit – June 2, 2009 – Today at its global partner conference, Cisco announced an ambitious series of initiatives designed to help its global channel community navigate the challenging economic environment while preparing for the upturn.  These initiatives include an extension of Cisco's channel partner financing, the expansion of its managed services channel program, and the evolution of its flagship partner profitability program. 

The Cisco® Navigate to Accelerate initiative establishes a holistic framework to help channel partners improve their business in four key areas:  financial strength, generating new business from existing customers, meeting the changing needs of customers, and preparing for future growth.

 Cisco continues to aggressively invest in Navigate to Accelerate programs to help its channel partners adapt and succeed amid economic uncertainty.

Highlights / Key Facts:

Global Financing Offers Help Partners Manage Their Cash Flow

• Cisco is investing in channel financing to support partners with working capital during the economic downturn.
• In a time when others are tightening credit, Cisco has provided the credit support to drive an additional $2 billion in sales since October 2008.
• Cisco can extend channel financing terms to 90 days, which provides a six-month financing stimulus package to partners that are currently participating.
• Cisco will continue to expand its channel financing program with the 90 day offer to include more partners around the world.  Expansion efforts will be focused in Asia Pacific and Europe.
• Cisco channel financing is offered in over 140 countries; double that of any other IT vendors.

Simplifying and Expanding Cisco Managed Services Channel Program

• To help reward and support managed services providers, Cisco is launching the next generation of its Managed Services Channel Program (MSCP).
• Industry analysts are predicting that the current macro-economic environment is creating the perfect opportunity for managed services, as customers actively look to shift spending from capital expenditures to operational expenses.
• According to Ovum Research, managed services is a $42 billion worldwide market opportunity and is growing 19 percent annually.
• In the most recent annual survey of businesses by Nemertes Research, 63 percent of businesses expect to adopt some level of managed services in 2009.
• To allow more channel partners to participate in the program, MSCP lowered the barrier to entry and now enables partner-to-partner collaboration through a "white label" arrangement that allows two partners to work together to deliver a managed service using one network operations center.
• To simplify MSCP, Cisco is now providing a single discount, based on the partner level attained in MSCP, across all Cisco products that the partner manages.
• At the top level of MSCP, Cisco is branding partners as Master Managed Services Partner to reflect their highest depth of capability.

Evolution of Cisco Value Incentive Program

• Cisco is evolving its industry-leading Value Incentive Program (VIP) as its channel partners look to invest in architectural capabilities around collaboration, virtualization and borderless network.
• Cisco's VIP was originally introduced in 2003 to enable channel partners to profitably build up their advanced technology practices, and currently supports unified communications, security, wireless and data center. 
• Cisco has awarded $2.5 billion to partners through VIP rebates since the program inception in 2003.
• For the first time, VIP will reward channel partners for selling routing, switching, storage networking, wide-area networking optimization and emerging technologies, such as Cisco TelePresence^TM, into one of the architectural plays:  collaboration, virtualization and borderless network.
• Cisco is offering partners the Smart Business Architecture for Mid-sized Networks as part of the borderless network architecture.  Designed for businesses with 250 to 1,000 employees, the architecture offers partners prescriptive network design and deployment best practices, and includes switching, routing, wireless, unified communications, wide area networking optimization, security, and network management technologies.

Supporting Quotes:

• Keith Goodwin, senior vice president, Worldwide Channels, Cisco:

"As Cisco aggressively drives new market transitions and moves into adjacent markets during this economic downturn, our channel partners have never been more important to our success.  Cisco is uniquely positioned to support the health of our channel partner community."

• Edison Peres, senior vice president, Go-to-Market Group, Worldwide Channels, Cisco:

"Cisco is actively working with our channel partners to navigate the current economic challenges while investing for future growth.  As channel partners look for help to navigate the challenging economic environment, we continue to expand our channel financing program and open up the program for more channel partners to participate.  To prepare channel partners to 'accelerate' during the economic upturn, we have made important announcements to invest in our channel partners' long-term viability and growth.  Evolving our Value Incentive Program and unveiling our next generation MSCP will help channel partners capture market transitions and increase profitability."

• Joel Schleicher, Chairman and CEO, Presidio Networked Solutions, Inc.:

"Customers need to feel secure in the knowledge that today's investment in technology solutions will be cost-effective in the short term while delivering long-term operational savings across the organization. Presidio Networked Solutions provides technology solutions that achieve these goals and meet the lifecycle needs of our customers. Cisco's next-level and evolving channel  programs will assist partners in pursuing growth opportunities despite the global macroeconomic challenges."

• Cyndi Privett, Principal, Viewpoint Research:

"Cisco's new channel offerings have real teeth and address many of solution providers' key concerns: upgrading installed base customers, credit, profitability and growth. Channel partners are more likely to lead with vendors that are providing new opportunities to sell to both new and existing customers. Cisco has done just that."

Availability:

• Final details on VIP enhancements will coincide with the rollout of VIP 14 in the beginning of FY10 (August 2009)
• Cisco will have a 90-day transition to the new MSCP requirements and will begin accepting applications under the new rules on Aug. 31.

Supporting Resources:

• Cisco Channels Partner Program
• Cisco Capital
• Visit the Cisco Channels blog for Cisco Partner Summit highlights and channel news updates
• Follow Cisco Channel news on Twitter: @CSCOChannelNews. We also invite you to participate in Cisco Partner Summit conversations on Twitter by tagging your tweets with #ciscoPS09
• What Goes Down Must Come Up: Partners Discuss Their Plans for the Economic Recovery
• Cisco and Partners Collaborate To Prepare For Recovery: An interview with SVP Keith Goodwin

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