Apple, Verizon Partnerships Foreshadow Cisco's Future In The Digital Age, Partners Say

Partners say Cisco is shedding its image as a proprietary company through new partnerships and enhanced relationships with the likes of Apple, Verizon, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. Analysts and solution providers say the networking giant's recent efforts are giving the world a glimpse of the "new" Cisco in the digital age.

"This is part of the new Cisco," said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research. "Cisco has historically taken a beating by the media and competitors for being closed and proprietary and wanting to build everything themselves, and frankly, I think it was justified. … This is the most partner-friendly and most open I've ever seen Cisco."

The San Jose, Calif.-based networking giant recently unveiled a partnership with Apple by which the two companies will team up to optimize Cisco networks for Apple iOS-based devices and applications. Cisco also announced a partnership with Verizon that combines the telecom company's IT consulting services with Cisco's Intelligent WAN (IWAN) technology -- offering a joint software-defined WAN service for enterprise customers to keep up with growing network traffic.

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Cisco has also recently partnered with several security companies, including Zix Corp., for email protection, and cloud application and monitoring specialist Elastica.

"By partnering with Apple, Verizon and security companies, there's a nod that Cisco knows they can't go at this alone," said David Powell, vice president of TekLinks, a Birmingham, Ala.-based Cisco Gold partner. "The market is increasingly disruptive, so you can either try to go it alone, which is a risky proposition, or you can look for partners to help you navigate this new landscape, which looks to be the path Cisco is taking."

Powell said Cisco will play to its strengths, then partner with companies who can fill in any gaps.

"There is no way Cisco can be all things to all people now -- it's too broad, … so partnering is the right answer going forward," said Powell.

Cisco extended its virtual machine on-boarding this year to support Amazon Virtual Private Cloud as well as its firewall services to now support Microsoft Azure. Microsoft and Cisco also introduced the Cisco Cloud Architecture for the Microsoft Cloud Platform, which integrates Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) with Microsoft's Windows Azure Pack.

CEO Chuck Robbins told CRN that his company's strategy on the hyper-converged infrastructure front will be to partner, not acquire, such as its arrangement utilizing its current relationship with SimpliVity.

"We're seeing a new generation of partnerships coming to fruition," said Kent MacDonald, vice president of converged infrastructure and network services at Long View Systems, a Calgary, Alberta-based solution provider and Cisco partner. "We've always historically dealt with the NetApps and EMCs. … We're seeing as the market transitions to cloud and hybrid cloud and new technologies, it brings a new group of partnerships to the table that is likely to continue."

Cisco's recent partnership tear stems from spreading itself into new and emerging markets as well as facing stiffer competition. Partners said the networking giant was previously facing competitors such as 3Com and Nortel, compared with now going head to head against the likes of Hewlett-Packard and VMware.

"Five years ago, they were worrying about what other switching and routing vendors were doing, and Amazon was a bookstore," said Powell. "Now the competitive marketplace has totally changed, and they've pretty much won or established market position in the route and switch space, but there's new competitors emerging in new spaces, and the more you can partner in that to maintain a competitive foothold as opposed to trying to take over that market yourself, is a smart move by Cisco."

ZK Research's Kerravala said he believes the increase of partnerships will accelerate channel sales, because customers will want a faster, simpler IT environment with validated solutions.

"IT actually has become much more complicated than it used to be, with everything now virtual, mobile and cloud-driven, so the ability for a company like Cisco with the size and reach they have to be able to partner with these companies brings validated solutions to market," said Kerravala.

Another channel benefit will be faster deployment time, such as in the Apple partnership, according to Kerravala.

"The Cisco network will be able to prioritize voice communications on an Apple device running over the network -- this helps the channel because it gives the customer a better experience -- it lets the VAR not have to do so much fine-tuning and a lot of manual programming themselves," said Kerravala.

"The technology partner angle will only help Cisco resellers, because it takes a lot of the fine-tuning out of the deployment and lets the partner move on to things that are more strategic, versus having to focus on the technology parts of the deployment, which is important in this digital age, because customers want solutions deployed faster," he said.

Long View Systems' MacDonald said Cisco partnerships can spur market-share growth, bring validation to its technology and give it an edge over competitors.

"Cisco has been duking it out with VMware on the [software-defined networking front], and to see Verizon adopt Cisco is a feather in the cap of Cisco," said MacDonald. "If Verizon is making that a differentiator, I would suspect that the [other telcos] are going to have to counter that by keeping up with comparable technology, whether it be Cisco or someone else."

Verizon competitors will not want to be left behind as the market demand grows, MacDonald said, so telecoms will follow suit that could bring in new recurring revenue streams to the channel.

PUBLISHED SEPT. 8, 2015