Them's Fightin' Words: Cisco Says HP-Microsoft Alliance Cuts Out Partners

In a keynote address at Cisco Partner Summit on Wednesday, Don Proctor, senior vice president of Cisco's software group, told partners that the HP-Microsoft alliance appears to be mostly a direct play and that it is "cutting you out of the equation."

Proctor was referring to the four-year pairing forged by HP and Microsoft to build, sell and service unified communications and collaboration solutions. The initiative, which was unveiled last month at Interop Las Vegas 2009, is an extension of the two companies' 20-plus-year partnership. Both companies have said the solutions and services that spawn from the alliance will be available through their respective channels.

Proctor's keynote comes just a week after Cisco global channel chief Keith Goodwin questioned the channel's role in the HP-Microsoft partnership in a post on Cisco's channel blog.

HP, however, disagrees, and said the channel will play a strong role in bringing the solutions to market.

"HP and Microsoft are actively working with their Frontline Partnership partners in bringing this important new unified communications solution stack to customers," Mark Lewis, HP's senior marketing communications manager for its Americas solution partners organization, said in an e-mail to Channelweb.com. "For more than 30 years, HP's channel partners have been a key strategic asset in bringing new products to market. The new unified communications alliance with Microsoft is no exception."

Lewis said partners will play an integral role in bringing HP's and Microsoft's joint offerings to market. He said there are currently more than 30,000 joint HP and Microsoft partners and 2,000 of them are competent in unified communications. He added that in November HP unveiled a Microsoft Unified Communications Elite classification to recognize and reward HP partners for their focus on unified communications and collaboration technologies.

"HP and Microsoft expect the channel to play an active role in taking the unified communications products to market and we are providing the tools and training necessary for their success," Lewis wrote.

Proctor, however, said the HP-Microsoft unified communications and collaboration partnership lacks the power of Cisco's network, which fuels Cisco's collaboration solutions. He also said partners will have to convince customers to undergo a forklift upgrade to accommodate the fruits of the HP/Microsoft partnership.

"You can't build a world-class collaboration solution unless you have a world-class network, and they don't have one," Proctor said.

Proctor said collaboration is a $34 billion opportunity and called it the market transition of the decade.

"Collaboration has gone from being a nice-to-have to being an economic imperative for our customers ... this is business going from physical to virtual," he said.

Proctor said Cisco's vision is to leverage the network as the platform and be the first full stack provider for collaboration. On the unified communications side, he said, Cisco competes and integrates with competing solutions, but said the competition has yet to truly challenge Cisco.

"First it was Siemens. Then it was Nortel. Look what happened to them," Proctor said. "Now it's HP. Don't hold your breath."