The New Network

"While we've done over 130 acquisitions, WebEx has a very realistic possibility of being in the top five, maybe even in the top two, in terms of the long-term contribution to Cisco," Chambers said. "WebEx has the capabilities to expand well beyond just enabling collaboration, [to] providing many things as a service to the environment, embedding them deep into our products and [to be] a key differentiator for many of our customers and partners as well."

Solution providers like George Pashardis, vice president of sales at ePlus Technology Inc., a Cisco Gold partner in New York, see huge potential for building WebEx into their businesses.

"Now everyone is using some sort of WebEx-type service, whether it's Citrix GoToMeeting or ReadyTalk or something else, so we do see a huge opportunity," Pashardis said.

Cisco is piloting a number of channel programs built for partners working in these new service models. In addition to a managed services program launched in the fall and a pilot channel program around WebEx, Cisco is now also piloting a program for outsourcing partners. The outsourcing program is part of a strategy Goodwin unveiled in 2006 to create "offer-based" partner programs.

"We're working with a small set of partners today who have a lot of experience historically in the outsourcing marketplace, and we're using their knowledge and expertise to help us build the program," Goodwin said. "The idea here isn't to say that partners need to move into managed services or outsourcing ... but there are significant trends there, so we want partners that are moving in that direction to support that."

New Products, Too
As Cisco pushes out channel building blocks to help partners evolve, it's also launching new products. In March, the company unveiled its Aggregation Services Router (ASR) family, a new line of midrange routers that aims to bring high-performance services to the network edge. The line incorporates IOS XE, a virtualized version of Cisco's Internetwork Operating System, and provides unparalleled levels of resiliency and application delivery, the company said.

In addition, collaboration, unified communications and data center technology are all slated for the spotlight at Partner Summit, including the launch of new application capabilities for Cisco's Integrated Services Router family.

While many Cisco partners share Chambers' vision of what the network can do, some customers are still hesitant to pull the trigger on full-blown collaboration solutions.

"A lot of people are really starting to invest in it now, but most of the customers I deal with are still a little hesitant. But I think it's coming, that's for sure," said Billy Merchant, state contracts manager for ProSys Inc., a solution provider based in Norcross, Ga.

Chambers advised channel partners not to let their business strategies get derailed by clouds on the economic horizon, and he said to get ready for the upturn, get ready to pounce on the next market transition. That, after all, is what he's doing.