Preview: Cisco Partner Summit 2015

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Next week, one of the biggest partner conferences of the year will kick off in Montreal -- the 2015 Cisco Partner Summit. CRN Executive Editor Jennifer Follett told CRNtv she expects the focus of the event to be on software, a new direction for the networking giant.

’We had a chance to talk to Cisco’s Global Channel Chief Bruce Klein this week, who gave us a little bit of a curtain-raiser on what they’re going to be focusing on, and it sounds like it’s really going to be all about software and cloud,’ Follett said.

This spring marks the one-year anniversary of Cisco’s Intercloud launch, and Follett said the company has tried to position itself as more of a software player. She said Klein talked extensively about Cisco One, a bundled software effort the company launched in January.

’From my point of view, this is a pretty big identity shift for a lot of Cisco players who have been traditionally focused on networking,’ Follett said.

With the buzz around HP’s split, Follett said it would be hard for Cisco to completely ignore citing the competition, but she expects the company to mostly play it down the middle.

’Maybe they’ll come out a little strong,’ she said, naming VMware and EMC as other competitors threatening Cisco’s dominance.

CRN expects more than 2,200 partners to attend Cisco Partner Summit, which kicks off April 27. All the latest news and analysis will be available from the show at CRN.com and the CRN tablet app.

PUBLISHED APRIL 22, 2015