Switches and Routers: Cisco
For partners, the introduction of Cisco’s Integrated Services Router platform this past year has been significant. The new platform, which combines voice, video and security with a router, changed the market, Temske said. “There are very few vendors out there that are offering solutions that fundamentally change the way companies do business,” he said. “But Cisco does.”
With a continued emphasis on improving partner profitability, Cisco Systems led the switches and routers category of this year’s CRN Channel Champions Survey.
The San Jose, Calif.-based vendor garnered an overall score of 79.8, or 4.8 points ahead of its nearest competitor. Hewlett-Packard’s ProCurve networking division took second place with 75, closely followed by 3Com with 74.9. Linksys, Netgear and D-Link rounded out the category with scores of 69.7, 69.6 and 69.1, respectively.
On channel criteria, Cisco ranked first in seven out of nine areas, with decisive margins in consistency of channel programs, technical education and responsiveness to partner feedback. 3Com edged out Cisco for the top spot in sales margins and reducing channel conflict, but its margin of victory was far from substantial.
Michael Fong, president and CEO of Calence, a Tempe, Ariz., Cisco partner, said the vendor has made considerable progress over the past three years in helping its partners improve profitability. “These guys have executed on a broad channel vision,” Fong said. “They said they were going to fix the problems and they did it. Cisco is now a channel-centric company focused on keeping its partners profitable.”
Ron Temske, director of IP communications for Logicalis, a nationwide integrator based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., concurred with Fong. “Cisco has put a lot of focus on improving its channel programs, and the results have been remarkable,” Temske said. “It is absolutely getting better.”
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Cisco also kept its decisive lead on the technology criteria with a score of 91.7 in overall technical satisfaction. HP’s ProCurve unit held onto its second-place status with a score of 86.1, again followed by 3Com, with a score of 84.5.
Cisco captured the top spot in five of six criteria and pulled 10 points ahead in the area of security. The company still has some marketing to do on the price/performance question, however, where it scored fourth out of six vendors. 3Com took the No. 1 position in that criterion, followed by Netgear and HP.