Newsletter Home > October, 2008

• Cisco Stakes its Claim to Collaboration Space
• Industry News
• Keep Your Eye on the Ball, Cisco

Collaboration has been a major theme recently at Cisco Systems. It started out with the announced acquisition of "Jabber," a privately–held messaging and presence software company that, in part, serves as the underpinning of the larger Cisco strategy.

"We were really looking for a presence engine that would go across all of our assets, which would be highly interoperable," said Alex Hadden-Boyd, director of marketing for Cisco's Collaboration Software Group. "Many of our large enterprise customers have already decided on a presence engine and have already deployed them, and deployed applications using them. So we were in search of a presence engine that was going to be as interoperable and scalable as possible while also fitting both our on-premise model and our on-demand model."

She added that Jabber also has a very active developer community that is busy writing code based on that presence information.

Several days after the Jabber acquisition was announced, Cisco hosted events in San Diego for key industry thought leaders and channel partners. The company announced a new collaboration portfolio based on Unified Communications System Release 7.0, TelePresence, and a new conferencing service based on the technology of Cisco's WebEx subsidiary to help create customized applications and network-based services. Supported software vendors are expected to include Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP.

For a long time the partners have been waiting for the other shoe to drop on the WebEx strategy. It's been long expected that some telephony-style agency model would eventually emerge as the primary route to market for WebEx. And that time has now arrived.

"In essence, we're rolling out the ability for channel partners to participate in the collaboration portfolio by adding the SaaS or WebEx component to their own offerings," explained Hadden-Boyd. "This provides them with an opportunity for a recurring revenue stream plus the ability to build customized applications on top of WebEx or unified communications – which is a much bigger revenue stream than selling and installing equipment.

"I think you're going to start seeing Cisco as more of a software company. I know you're used to seeing us as a networking hardware company, but I think you're going to start seeing us in a whole new light."

Industry News

VideoIQ Launches Partner Program to Support Video Surveillance Offerings

Atlanta-based VideoIQ, Inc. has introduced a new partner program designed for resellers, system integrators and consultants in the growing security and video surveillance space. Offerings include the VideoIQ iCVR (cameras and encoders with video recording) and VideoIQ HD Smart Video Analyzers. Targeted markets include commercial businesses, government facilities, corporate campuses, and private residences. The VideoIQ Inner Circle Program offers two levels of memberships with progressively higher rewards as volumes increase.

ProCurve Aligns Program with HP’s PartnerOne

ProCurve has realigned its channel program to establish consistency with HP’s PartnerOne program. Key changes include a re-naming of the authorization levels which are now “Business Partner,” Preferred”, and “Elite.” The company claims a 7% growth in its channel business over last year, and has nearly doubled its number of partners.

John DiLullo Named President of Avaya, Asia Pacific

Avaya has announced the appointment of John DiLullo as President of Avaya's Asia Pacific region.

DiLullo will lead operations across Asia Pacific, including the sales and support of the company's technology, applications and industry-specific businesses. The role also includes responsibility for business planning and strategy development, customer care, marketing and management of Avaya's country offices, and channel partner programs for Asia Pacific. He is based in Avaya's Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore and reports to Todd Abbott, Avaya's worldwide leader of sales and field operations.

Prior to Avaya, DiLullo was Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Channels and Field Operations at SonicWall, Inc., and Vice President of Worldwide Distribution at Cisco Systems. With more than 20 years experience, DiLullo brings a strong sales and channel operations background and good knowledge of Asia to this position.

On The Other Hand - Keep Your Eye on the Ball, Cisco

 By: Ken Presti

The collaboration strategy surely represents an exciting time at Cisco, as the company seeks to redefine itself with an expanded emphasis on unified communications and related software.

It sounds pretty compelling. The most successful companies - like the most successful people - tend to be the ones who can re-invent themselves as times change. As networking technologies mature, there's only so much that Cisco can do to take cost out of the model to preserve those growth rates. And without the right numbers, Wall Street will not be generous.

On the other hand, if Cisco can successfully expand into the software market, the overall opportunity grows immensely. It's much easier to innovate in software than it is to innovate in hardware. But they'll need to be careful not to lose their market edge with traditional networking products. That's not something they would plan to do. Surely they recognize the importance of their market share and brand awareness in their traditional space. I'm talking about something that is more tightly linked to human nature than it is tied to forethought.

It's only natural for bright and ambitious people to want to be on the cutting edge of their corporate initiatives, to be able to claim partial responsibility for success in new areas, and to help transform Cisco into a software company. But as mindshare and resources begin to shift in a new direction, it will be much easier to take their eye off the ball than most people realize. Certainly there are a lot of networking companies who will be looking for Cisco to make that mistake, and will be ready to pounce, if they do. Cisco is going to have to prove them wrong.

With the proper balance, this move could provide Cisco with a whole new range of upside – one that the company very much needs, as it continues pushing to hit the numbers demanded by Wall Street. But this move is not without its risks, and those must be kept in mind, as well.

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