What's The Score?

By Jennifer Hagendorf Follett

Solution providers participating in the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey named Cisco Systems Inc. as the company of the year in the Wireless Infrastructure category, awarding it a decisive victory over its competitors.

Cisco, San Jose, Calif., handily beat out its rivals, garnering a clean sweep of all 18 product innovation, support and partnership criteria.

Cisco earned top marks across the board with an overall score of 75. The race for runner-up was tight, as only three points separated the second-place finisher from the fifth-place finisher. D-Link Systems Inc., Fountain Valley, Calif., grabbed the No. 2 overall spot with a score of 67, followed by San Jose, Calif.-based Netgear with 66, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Co. at 65 and Cisco's Linksys division with 64.

D-Link placed second in the product innovation subcategory, tied for second with Netgear and HP in the support subcategory and tied for second with Netgear in the partnership subcategory.

Cisco's most decisive victory came in the support subcategory, where its overall score bested its closest rivals by 10 points. Cisco boasted double-digit margins of victory in several criteria under the support subcategory, including quality of field management, training and marketing support.

"We have a CAM [Channel Account Manager] that is phenomenal, and if we have questions on new programs coming out, certifications, packages or new features, she's just fantastic," said Nate Freeman, president of Network People Inc., a Largo, Fla.-based Cisco partner.

Cisco also distinguished itself with a strong showing in the product innovation subcategory, particularly in criteria such as services opportunity and technical innovation.

The latter has been a strong focus for Cisco's WLAN business during the past year, said Alex Thurber, senior director of technical go-to-market for worldwide channels at Cisco.

"We brought the first practical enterprise 802.11n access point into the field and have helped partners ramp up," Thurber said, noting that uptake of its wireless-N line portfolio has been faster than anticipated, putting the company roughly a year ahead of its expectations.

In recent months, Cisco also launched Cisco Motion, a wireless initiative aimed at bringing advanced mobility solutions to customers, as well as a companion channel program dubbed Partner Motion, which brings sales tools and financial rewards to partners that migrate customers to Cisco's latest wireless technologies, including 802.11n.

Gary Berzack, CTO of eTribeca LLC, a New York-based solution provider, said Cisco's rollout of a dual-band 802.11n access point, which offers a 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz radio, sets Cisco's wireless portfolio apart from its rivals. Berzack also lauded Cisco for the VoIP-minded capabilities it has built into its wireless platform to empower and enable Voice-over-Wi-Fi.

"A lot of [competitive products] just don't have the right horsepower to handle 12 to 20 simultaneous voice calls like Cisco does," Berzack said.

For its part, HP's ProCurve Networking is seeing a tremendous amount of interest in its wireless portfolio, said Kevin Kabat, ProCurve's Americas channel sales and marketing director.

"We've taken a very strategic focus in wireless, not just in the ability to do wireless but to do it with confidence in security of it," Kabat said.

Going forward, HP's planned acquisition of wireless vendor Colubris will help strengthen ProCurve's WLAN lineup, he said.

"It's going to jump us considerably ahead in wireless technology, bring innovative wireless technology to the market and into our product portfolio," Kabat said.

Brian Kraemer contributed to this story.

Next: Workgroup Color Printers