Infrastructure – Round 1

Bruce Klein, Cisco vs. Jim Ritchings, F5 Networks

Bruce Klein, senior vice president of Cisco's worldwide partner organization, brings 10 years of channel experience to the table in his role supporting Cisco's roughly 68,000 partners worldwide. In 2014, Cisco continued to build out its partner ecosystem, launched its Intercloud public cloud strategy, and rolled out new incentives and partner enablement tools.

Klein's opponent in Round 1 is a familiar one in Jim Ritchings, senior vice president of worldwide channels at F5. The company closed its 2014 fiscal year at $1.7 billion, up $300 million from the previous year, and according to Ritchings, the ultimate goal for F5 is to triple its channel partners in 2015.

Will F5's existing partner base provide enough support to power Ritchings past the networking giant's Klein?