Breaking up is hard to do. But in the case of Cisco Systems and its recent split from HP, the change may not be a bad thing.
According to Cisco's (News - Alert) Worldwide Partner Organization chief, Keith Goodwin, who spoke in a YouTube video this week, said the company’s relationship 'evolved from a partnership to companies with different and conflicting visions of how to deliver value to our customers.” And in order to propel the company forward, Goodwin said Cisco changed its strategy, adding that it “no longer makes sense' to offer HP partnership benefits, including access to product roadmaps and partner profitability efforts.
Cisco wants to team with “partners who share our network centric vision,” Goodwin said. So, the company notified HP that it would not review its system integrator contract, which expires on April 30.
As a result, HP will no longer be a Cisco-certified channel or local service alliance partner, he said.
The change will position Cisco as a competitor to HP.
In a statement to ZDNet UK, HP said 'Most major players compete in one deal and partner in others to best serve clients' needs. We do not believe it is in the customer's best interest to take a proprietary stance.'
Officials with Ovum (News - Alert), an advisory services and consulting firm, said that the deal will harm HP more so than Cisco. But they said, Cisco officials have their work cut out for them.
“Cisco will need to be able to have better business value conversations with clients, as HP has been clearly superior in this area,” the company released in a statement. “With this change in direction, Cisco will still require someone to implement its products going forward. Hence, the major winners out of this will be the remaining partners, in particular Dimension Data (incorporating Datakraft), which is continuing to impress in its performance in the Cisco products and solutions implementation space.”
Amy Tierney is a Web editor for TMCnet, covering business communications Her areas of focus include conferencing, SIP, Fax over IP, unified communications and telepresence. Amy also writes about education and healthcare technology, overseeing production of e-Newsletters on those topics as well as communications solutions and UC. To read more of Amy's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Amy Tierney