2007 CRN Channel Champions: Networking

SMB NETWORKING HARDWARE

The vendor's overall category rating of 69.6 was just enough to beat HP's 69.2 rating, while SonicWall was not far behind with a 68.4. Rounding out the competition were Cisco's Linksys division (66.4), Netgear (64.6), D-Link (63.4) and 3Com (62.7).

While Cisco actually trailed HP by small margins in the technical satisfaction and financial factors ratings, it burnished its reputation as a friend to the channel by capturing the highest rating for the program and support criteria subcategory by more than 2 points.

"I can tell you, from a channel partner's perspective, these guys are on top of their game," said Jack Kirby, vice president of sales at Troubadour, a Houston VAR. "And this is not something new. They drive profitability into the channel. The competition is nowhere close."

Two technical areas where Cisco earned the highest ratings were security and product quality and reliability.

Kirby said Cisco's dedication to security has been a key factor in the success of Troubadour, which was recently named Cisco's Security Partner of the Year for the South Region, Commercial Market.

"They have finally got a whole suite of products where they can say that Cisco's goal is to secure everything. The dream of end-to-end security is now a reality. They offer that pure solution that nobody else can touch now," Kirby said.

Cisco partners weren't particularly concerned with the vendor's financial ratings, which were low across the board for all SMB networking hardware finalists.

"Hardware margins aren't a big part of our business," said Tracy Butler, president of Acropolis Technology, Wood River, Ill. "It's the services we sell around the product that we're concerned about."

And Butler, like many Cisco partners, is pretty happy.

"We choose all of our vendor partners based on quality of product. So from a technology standpoint, that's why we picked Cisco in the first place," he said.

— Damon Poeter

Next: SMB Wireless LANs SMB WIRELESS LANs

Cisco Systems' strong command over the SMB wireless LAN market comes as no surprise to solution providers, which crowned it the 2007 CRN Channel Champion in the category.

Cisco swept nearly every measure and bested the No. 2 contender, its own Linksys division, by several points in most criteria. Cisco received its highest score of 100.8 for product quality and reliability, and notched its next highest score of 98.7 when it came to product security.

These two accolades hit the nail on the head, said Martin Gendell, principal at Apogee Technology Services, a Cisco Registered and SMB Select partner in Alexandria, Va.

"The Cisco products tend to be very flexible in their implementation, and they have a lot of the standard technologies built into them so it gives us a lot of options—things like strong security, integration with other security mechanisms, authentication [and] encryption," Gendell said.

One area where Cisco has historically scored low, however, is in price for performance. This year the company received the fifth lowest score out of six contenders for this criterion.

Cisco scored admirably in the financial and channel ratings categories, and it received high rankings in measures of pre- and post-sales support, technical education resources and efforts to keep solution providers informed.

Jim Wilson, president and CEO of AllSmart, an SMB and SOHO solution provider in Lake Forest, Ill., said Cisco's channel strength begins with the examples set at the highest company ranks.

"Cisco has a philosophy from the top down that's very customer-oriented. [Chairman and CEO John] Chambers and all his people are very customer-oriented," Wilson said. "They have a feel for what the end user is looking for, and for what the dealer needs."

Cisco is hoping to build on its success in the SMB wireless market by investing even more resources. Cisco recently unveiled a new Select partner tier in its Certified Partner program and is looking to recruit 10,000 SMB VARs.

— Michael Gros

Next: Enterprise Networking Hardware ENTERPRISE NETWORKING HARDWARE

Solid margins of victory for technical criteria, especially security and product quality and reliability, ensured Cisco Systems' latest CRN Channel Champions win for enterprise networking. But the vendor faced tough competition from Hewlett-Packard on the channel program and support side.

Cisco claimed the product category with an overall rating of 72.3, HP was second with 70.7, 3Com was third with 66.4, and Nortel Networks and Juniper Networks tied for fourth with 65.4 ratings.

Angela Trillhaase, senior vice president of business development at Meridian IT, Chicago, said as the enterprise networking space evolves, technical innovation has become more critical. "These are advanced technologies now. They are not just routers and switches that are passive devices," she said.

The only technical criterion that Cisco did not win was price for performance, where HP's rating of 81 eclipsed Cisco's 78.9.

The story was dramatically different in program and support criteria, where HP won in five out of the six areas considered. Its biggest margin of victory was for efforts to manage channel conflict. The lone exception was technical education resources, where Cisco edged it out by eight-tenths of 1 point.

Trillhaase said HP readily shares technical resources to help a solution provider close a sale. "I find that HP tends to be fairly generous and very helpful in this area," she said.

When it came to financial measures, solution providers anecdotally were more conflicted about Cisco.

William Adams, vice president of ACS Services, a solution provider in Easton, Mass., said he's not all that keen on the ROI he gets out of his Cisco relationship. On the other hand, its product quality and the technical resources that it deploys to back his team in the field are unparalleled, he said. "From the support side of Cisco, you can't get better support," Adams said. "Cisco will literally get on the phone with you and troubleshoot. And the guy you're talking to isn't some low-level guy."

Trillhaase said the value of a solution provider's relationship with Cisco depends on how closely it follows the objectives set during business planning sessions. "Cisco has hired us to be their sales force, and they have put in place a compensation plan where if we work the plan, we will make money," she said.

— Heather Clancy

Next: Enterprise Wireless LANs ENTERPRISE WIRELESS LANs

The breadth and quality of Cisco Systems' enterprise WLAN products again pushed the vendor to the top of this Channel Champions category.

While Cisco faced stiff competition from Hewlett-Packard in channel support areas, the champ's overall rating of 75 beat runner-up Hewlett-Packard by 3.7 points, Nortel Networks by 6.1 points and 3Com by 7.7 points. Cisco's greatest strength was in technical criteria, particularly in quality and reliability, and security.

Mike Saulter, senior network consultant at Evolve Technology Group, Rocklin, Calif., said Cisco's leadership in the use of Lightweight Access Point Protocol, which uses a controller to manage the network, makes its WLANs easy to deploy, secure and manage.

"Cisco is able to offer the end-to-end solution," Saulter said. "They own the Access Control Server, and everything is fully integrated, instead of having to go to two and three parties. From a security standpoint, that's pretty important."

Cisco also excelled with financial criteria, leading by 12.3 points in the area of "vendor's share of sales." That indicates Cisco partners generally sell end-to-end Cisco solutions for most installations. Cisco also held an advantage in services attach rates.

Cisco, though, took a backseat to HP for one of the financial criteria: margins, rebates and spifs. Alan Cohen, vice president of mobility at Cisco, said the vendor is addressing the issue by enhancing rebates through its Value Incentive Program. "It's just starting to kick in," he said.

For aggregate program and support criteria, Cisco was a mere half-point ahead of HP. Solution providers rated HP best for consistency of programs, for keeping them informed and for managing channel conflict.

That may in part be due to Cisco's larger and more diverse wireless channel, which makes conflict an ever-present issue, and recent changes to its certification program with the addition of an advanced wireless certification to support new products such as its outdoor mesh networking line.

But solution providers still gave Cisco stellar marks for pre- and post-sales support. "Cisco absolutely has the best presales and post-sales support when it comes to wireless design implementation," said John Riddle, president of Information Networking, Irvine, Calif.

— John Longwell

Next: VoIP Technology VoIP Technology

Cisco Systems earned a decisive victory in the 2007 CRN Channel Champions VoIP technology category, garnering particularly strong ratings for high product quality, top-notch presales support and a strong share of its partners' sales.

Cisco grabbed the top spot with an overall rating of 78, besting its closest rival by 6.4 points. Nortel Networks placed second with a rating of 71.6, while Avaya placed third with a rating of 69.4. 3Com rounded out the category in fourth place with a score of 67.5.

Solution providers gave Cisco top scores across technical, channel and financial factors, rewarding it with first-place finishes in 17 of 18 criteria.

Cisco earned its largest margin of victory for share of partners' sales, where it beat out Nortel, its closest rival, by 16 points. Kurt Loock, president of DPSciences, a Cincinnati-based solution provider, pointed to the breadth of Cisco's portfolio as the reason his company has built its VoIP business exclusively on the Cisco Unified Communications portfolio.

"They've got the best brand behind them from the data perspective, and their whole concept of [carrying] everything under one brand with consistent quality of service throughout just makes them easier to use and partner with," Loock said.

On the technical front, Cisco's strongest performance came in product quality and reliability, where it topped Nortel by 10.4 points.

Partners also lauded Cisco for its presales support, the program and support criterion in which it posted its strongest lead with an 8.6-point rating advantage over Nortel.

"They recognize the need to provide a high level of support, and they collaborate really well with their partners to do that on presales support and the like," said Mont Phelps, president and CEO of NWN, a solution provider in Waltham, Mass.

Phelps also pointed to strong training as a hallmark of the Cisco program. "They understand what it takes to be successful in terms of installation and support. They set the bar very high."

The one area where partners saw room for Cisco to improve was in services attach rate, where it finished second to Nortel by two-tenths of a point. Nortel finished second in all other criteria except margins, rebates and spifs, where it placed third behind Cisco and Avaya.

— Jennifer Hagendorf Follett