Partners, Rather Than Cisco, Driving Data Center 3.0 Strategy

When Cisco Systems launched its Unified Communications strategy, the networking company worked overtime to educate partners about the market opportunities ahead. But Cisco’s Data Center 3.0 strategy will depend far more heavily on guidance from established partners, notes Wendy Bahr, VP of Channels for US and Canada.

Here’s the reasoning: Early on, the unified communications field was green with no established technologies. As a result, Cisco had to build solutions and partner programs from scratch. But when it comes to Data Center 3.0, many of Cisco’s partners already have expertise with servers, storage area networks and so on. As a result, Cisco realizes that partners may actually lead a lot of the Data Center 3.0 discussion going forward.