What's The Score?

By Jennifer Hagendorf Follett

Product innovation gave Cisco Systems Inc. the edge over its competitors as it grabbed the Company of the Year crown for Enterprise Networking Infrastructure in the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey.

Cisco won first-place finishes in all product innovation and support criteria, and came out first in five out of seven partnership criteria. The networking powerhouse's strength in product innovation helped it carry the day.

Cisco, San Jose, Calif., bested its rivals with an overall score of 77. Juniper Networks Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., placed second with a score of 74. Enterasys Networks Inc., Andover, Mass., finished third with a score of 70, followed by Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Co. at 64 and Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent with a score of 62.

Juniper gave Cisco a run for its money in the partnership subcategory, tying with it for first place. Juniper placed second, just two points behind Cisco, in the support subcategory, but lost ground in product innovation, where Cisco posted a five-point victory.

Cisco's largest margin of victory came under product innovation for the marketability criterion, where it bested its closest rival, Juniper, by 10 points. Solution providers also gave Cisco a strong showing in other product criteria such as richness of product features and functionality, quality and reliability, and services opportunity.

"In the enterprise, we're seeing a reflection of how well Cisco's strategy to combine advanced technologies and core technologies is coming to market," said John Growdon, director of core and data center for worldwide channels at Cisco, referring to Cisco's integration of technologies, such as wireless, security and VoIP, into its networking products. "Security and unified communications are ones where we really see it coming together," Growdon said.

Recent Cisco product launches such as its enterprise edge Aggregation Services Router 1000 Series and its Nexus 5000 Series data center switch have been gaining steam in the channel, Growdon said.

Solution providers also lauded Cisco for strong support, including criteria such as postsales support and quality of field management.

"We've latched onto some of their vertical support programs, particularly health care," said Frank Kobuszewski, vice president of the technology solutions group at CXtec, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based solution provider.

CXtec has seen benefits from health care-related marketing support, co-branding and lead campaigns, Kobuszewski said.

The only two criteria for which Cisco didn't come in at the top spot were under the partnership subcategory for ROI, where it placed second, and ease of doing business, where it finished third. Juniper won the top spot in both criteria, with Enterasys landing in second for ease of doing business.

Juniper's network infrastructure lineup was recently reinvigorated by the launch of its first enterprise switch family.

"The switch has made a profound impact on the channel. It represents the bridge between those partners that felt like they could play in the security space but didn't have the competence to address the routing product," said Philip O'Reilly, senior vice president of U.S. sales at Juniper. "The thing about the switch is, good, bad or indifferent, it is the primary vector into most customer environments. It's the thing that's most common among all of our customers, so it gives us access we've frankly never had before."

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