Cisco has announced the commencement of a Cloud Partner Program (CPP) for partners which rewards partners not only to build clouds on Cisco infrastructure but also to act as cloud providers and resell cloud services. The new program provides partners flexibility and empowers them to maximize their profitability by offering their own brand of Cloud Services Practice that is powered by Cisco.
B Raghavendran, VP, Partner Organization at Cisco India & SAARC said, “Cisco's Cloud Partner Program will enable partners to be adequately prepared to meet the large-scale demand for adoption of cloud services by customers in the coming years. This is a first in the industry where the designation is built on the validation of both Cisco and Non-Cisco competencies necessary to build a cloud. The partner will see an additional return on their Cisco and partner investments by leveraging them into a role they can play in the Cloud market. We expect to see the first set of partners being certified on the program, before the end of 2011”.
The program aims to supplement the investments so partners can leverage the cloud opportunity at a faster pace and lower cost. Under the aegis of this program, Cisco will also offer intellectual property and training to help partners increase their expertise in the cloud computing segment. Therefore The CCP program was created, so that partners can migrate to the cloud easily and profitably. Partners will be given the option to play one, more or all of the three roles and capitalize on the opportunities across the cloud value chain.
In an exclusive chat with VARIndia, Raghavendran shared that as of now they are busy evaluating the level of partners and classifying them as potential Cloud builders, Cloud providers and Cloud Services resellers. "From August the financial year is starting for Cisco, and by end of the first quarter i.e. in October we should be able to announce few partners as one of the three classification of Cloud partners."
