Newsletter Home > February, 2008

• Extreme Networks Prepares North American Channel Program Enhancements
• Wendy Bahr Named Cisco VP US/Canada Channels
• Industry News
• On The Other Hand - Cisco's new CCDE Certification: Is It Really Necessary?

Extreme Networks is preparing to revamp its channel program, adding a new partner certification level plus a number of new program components.

"Our goal was to increase our commitment and investment into the channel, and also to look at ways to enhance the existing program," explained Christopher Rajiah, Extreme's new director of North American Channels. Rajiah has been with Extreme for the past eight years, most recently as the Avaya alliance manager. He replaces Dan Sibille, who stepped down in December to pursue other opportunities.

Extreme claims that 93% of its global revenues are generated through indirect sales; North American revenues are roughly 80% indirect through a channel base of approximately 400 partners. The overall channel strategy offers separate, geographically-based programs.

Under the new North American program, Extreme's three certification levels (Platinum, Gold, Silver) will be expanded to include a new Diamond level to better meet the needs of Platinum partners well in excess of Platinum requirements.

Although a number of specifics are not yet available this far in advance of the projected April program launch, the partners' post-sales capabilities are clearly among the key components being expanded. The Santa Clara, California-based networking vendor is also introducing a continuing education program that requires partners to meet a certain number of training hours on a quarterly basis. The expected number of hours will scale upwards with certification level.

The company currently offers partners two options for professional services. The channel can either sell-thru the vendor's own Extreme Works branded services, or the channel can offer their own services through a Partner Works program in which the partners offer their own support with access to Extreme's resources for higher-level issues. Under the new program, this channel-led support will be mandatory to Diamond partners. Incentives for service contract renewals are expected to be enacted.

Extreme also has a professional services organization that the partners can leverage, either for resale of services or as a mechanism for their own training.

Other enhancements to the evolving program are expected to include:

• A new MDF program for all registered partners with benefits scaling upwards with certification level
• A loyalty rebate program based on meeting revenue requirements, certification requirements and continuing education requirements
• A "Bounty" program to reward partners who bring in unassisted high-volume contracts
• A lead generation program, available only to Platinum and Diamond levels.

Wendy Bahr Named Cisco VP US/Canada Channels

Cisco has named Wendy Bahr as the replacement to former US/Canada VP Chuck Robbins. The move was widely expected by industry watchers.

Wendy joined Cisco in 2000 as an Operations Director of Network Service Providers, after spending 10 years with Verizon, including roles as Sales Director of the Enterprise Sales Group, and also in the State and Local Government sector. She moved into the Federal Enterprise Organization in 2004 as the Operations Director of Federal Civilian Agencies, and has also led the U.S. commercial organization.

I spent a few minutes on the phone after her promotion was announced. This isn't exactly a transcript, but it's pretty close.

Ken: So what would you consider to be your primary role and challenges?

Wendy: To listen, be the partners' advocate within Cisco, focus on profitability, and create innovative programs and the right kind of support that insures success for the partners and Cisco.

We're not changing our charter; we're continuing to evolve on the platform that's been well established.

This is a very complex function within the corporation. I spent my first five years at Cisco working on the direct sales side with a variety of different segments, service provider, federal, etc. So when I came into the channel, the first thing I noticed was the degree of complexity in insuring the balance between the needs of Cisco from a business and shareholder perspective with the needs of the partner community, which sells greater than 80% of our products and services. So we're always looking and cause-and-effect and the interrelated dependencies that make this role so interesting and challenging.

Our partners must be successful in order for Cisco to be successful. And Cisco must be successful in continuing to innovate and develop new technologies and programs. It's a unique balancing act.

Ken: So what are some of the initiatives you're looking at, moving forward?

Wendy: Our focus is on how Cisco and our partners can scale to what is an enormous opportunity across many new technologies and business models, whether its software as a service, solutions sales etc. So one of the tenets moving forward is to continue to look at ways to scale our talent, retain our talent, and provide the right kind of collaborative tools that allow us to do more and be more productive.

We want to better interact with the partners and improve the partner experience as they connect with Cisco, whether it be the channel team or the direct team. We want to work more closely together and share information. So we'll be out there listening to identify any gaps so that we can look downstream to ensure that are programs are meeting the needs of the partners and at the same time meeting the needs of Cisco from a growth perspective.

Ken: How will your leadership be different from Chuck's?

Wendy: I'm not sure I'm as funny as Chuck (laughs). I don't know that I can keep up at that level. But in many ways we're similar – our communications style, the way we interact with partners, our commitment to relationships. I also think we've both had experiences that led us to this role, and those experiences help define how you approach business. So I'm looking forward to using my past experience, my deep knowledge of service providers, having been at Verizon before coming to Cisco, and spending time inside Cisco's SP organization. Also, my experience with the federal organization. Also working closely with the commercial and the enterprise teams. I'll take that experience and apply it to the innovation, and the communications, and the programs across the U.S. and Canada. But I think fundamentally, you'll see a lot of similarities between my style and Chuck's style, as well as Keith's style.

The art of working with the channel is to ensure that our partner base, routes to market and program are presenting a level playing field to our partner community. That means we have to make sure that we're maintaining balance in terms of partner capacity, capability, ensuring that you're looking at adaptive channel models All of those are key components to producing a successful channel strategy. So listening to the various constituencies and building that feedback into the overall plan is a critical skill.

Industry News

ProCurve and Siemens Announce Sales Agreement
ProCurve Networking by HP today announced a new sales agreement with Siemens Enterprise Communications enabling Siemens to sell ProCurve network products with Siemens Voice over IP (VoIP) technology.

The initial phase of the agreement is now being rolled out in Germany with subsequent implementation planned for the United Kingdom, Austria and Spain.

"We're trying to do this very prudently, so we're taking it one step at a time," explained Mark Thompson, director of ProCurve's Global Sales and Marketing. "Over the next few months we're in the process of expanding that relationship across the rest of Europe, and then we intend to expand it around the rest of the world. At the end state, we hope to have ProCurve be a partner everywhere Siemens competes."

The incremental roll-out is largely tied to ProCurve's desire to confirm that their portfolio, services capability, and systems are optimized to meet the needs of the larger enterprise customers that Siemens typically calls on.

Thompson continued, "We've done joint marketing in the UC space with Siemens before, but it had to be a ProCurve person on the networking side and a Siemens person on the voice side. And now we're equipping them to sell the entire solution themselves. This also gives the customer the single-point of accountability that they're looking for."

Thompson expects similar alliances with large solution providers will be forthcoming. ProCurve's other partnerships, such as its unified communications alliance with Mitel, are unchanged.

Genesys Upgrades its Partner Program
Alcatel-Lucent's Genesys subsidiary announced key changes to its channel program.

The company's new Gvalidated Application Integration is designed to validate and recognize when partner-developed applications can be successfully integrated with the Genesys platform. Upon successful completion and documentation, the tested integration becomes branded as "Gvalidated; a means of assuring customers that the partner's product and Genesys have been tested for both functional and technical soundness. A Gvalidated certification is valid for two years and each application must be re-certified when changes or enhancements are made.

Genesys also revamped its channel partner program. Key elements of the new program include:

• Consolidation of the existing InterActs and InterWorks Partner Programs into a centralized program
• A new Gold certification
• New resources for designing industry-specific solutions
• A new partner directory. It becomes much easier for customers to find the best Genesys partners suitable to their needs.

Nortel Appoints William Nelson as Global Sales Vice President
Nortel announced the appointment of William Nelson as executive vice-president, Global Sales.

Nelson was previously the senior vice president and general manager of EMC's Resource Management Software Group, an organization focused on the development and sale of applications, network, and storage management tools. Previously, Nelson served for 16 years at AT&T and Lucent in various executive positions, including president of Lucent's Service Provider Operations Group with responsibility for sales, support, and customer service to global carriers; global sales and product management leadership for Lucent's Enterprise Communications Systems Group; and general manager for the Wireless Networks Group.

Nelson, 52, is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Science degree and will be based in Nortel's offices in Billerica, Massachusetts.

On The Other Hand - Cisco's new CCDE Certification: Is It Really Necessary?

 By: Ken Presti

I'm having a hard time deciding if Cisco's new Certified Design Expert (CCDE) certification is a good idea. Maybe you folks can help me out.

Rolled out a little more than a week ago, the CCDE is described as being parallel to the CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert) in terms of difficulty and experience. But, in this new structure, Cisco views CCIEs as being predominantly about implementation.

The CCDE, on the other hand, will be responsible for planning and designing those solutions. So they need to be really up on things like technology trends, scalability, organizational issues, and compliance requirements.

"It's like the chef versus the cook," explained Cisco Certification Portfolio Manager, David Bump.

In other words, the CCDE will figure out how the IT infrastructure needs to be changed. The CCIE will then go do it – or tell somebody else to do it.

David is a good guy, and he was very patient while I worked-him-over incessantly on what seemed like the same question. But I'd always thought that high-end IT strategy development was what the CCIEs were all about. I'm sure they get their hands dirty too, but most of the grunt work has got to be done by people lower on the certification org chart. Isn't that true? Because CCIEs are expensive.

"The CCIEs have been telling us that they no longer do the hands-on implementation," Bump explained. "They've moved into this architectural role, and we needed to develop an assessment that establishes the minimum qualifications for an expert-level architect."

Okay, I can agree with the need for minimum qualifications. But does that require a whole new certification, or does it merely require an adjustment to the CCIE curriculum to reflect the emerging "chef" role that they're migrating towards.

Technology trends and issues related to scalability and legacy equipment, and even organizational issues are things that CCIEs should have well in-hand. They've probably been forced to tackle compliance issues too. But that's probably one area where the curriculum might need to be adjusted to better meet the needs of a changing industry.

All of this would be a question of semantics if the Cisco channel program weren't so complex. I've long advocated good reasons for that complexity. But because that complexity is there, Cisco needs to be very judicious about adding new moving parts to the program. The good news is that CCIE and CCDE are interchangeable from a channel requirements standpoint, which will make it easier for integrators to manage. But my interview with Cisco also left me some question that this will continue to be the case.

Cisco's slideware also says the CCIEs and CCDEs are peers, given that they're both Expert-level. That may be true on the org chart. But I think anybody who has the authority to draft a set of instructions for you to follow is, in fact, your boss!

From a marketing standpoint, I find this disturbing.

CCIE is a great brand! In the human hierarchy I always thought they ranked somewhere between Jesus and John Lennon. But now they're going to have others (probably ex-CCIEs) telling them what to do? Hmmmm. What does that do to that great, technical kingpin brand?

Bump says the arrival of CCDEs is good for CCIEs because the CCIEs can now focus on all that implementation stuff that they'd rather be doing. That's not ringing true for me.

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