Cisco Partner Weekly Rewind – March 7, 2014

Each week, we’ll highlight the most important Cisco partner news and stories, as well as point you to important, Cisco-related partner content you may have missed along the way. Here’s what you might have missed this week:

Off the Top

Cisco picked up a number of Channel Champions awards at this years’ XChange Solution Provider event in Los Angeles, CA. Edison Peres announced the wins this week, after accepting them at the event Tuesday evening.

As always, we all thank you, the Cisco partners, that truly make these awards happen. Your commitment and hard work are what power these awards, and your vision and feedback are what drive the evolution of Cisco programs and tools.

Be sure to check out the awards for this year and give us your thoughts.

XChange Solution Provider

I was lucky enough to attend the event in L.A. as well. In fact, I got out to the left coast a little earlier than my Cisco colleagues and I was able to spend the full day on Monday sitting in on sessions and meeting with partners. My wrap up for Monday is worth a look if you’re unfamiliar with the XChange Solution Provider event. It is a great way to mingle with partners and solution providers and check the pulse of the industry.

Since I didn’t post a wrap up on Tuesday, I thought I would share a little of the action from day 2 of XChange Solution Provider with you here in the Weekly Rewind.

Day two of XChange Solution Provider kicked off with panels covering “Channel Directions: The Six Pillars of Cloud.” Based on research from the Channel Company the session was moderated by Channel Company CEO Robert Faletra and included:

Alex Brown, CEO, 10th Magnitude, Inc.

Sam Coyl, President and CEO, Netrepid

David Geevaratne, President, New Signature

Glen Jodoin, VP of Marketing and Operations, GreenPages Technology Solutions

Jason Lambiris, CEO, Apex Digital Solutions

David Powell, VP of Managed and Cloud Services, TekLinks

The panel discussed how solution providers maintain success by focusing on their customer set. They provided insight on today’s channel and cloud trends, and how those trends help solution providers get the best return on investment and find the highest growth opportunities.

The most interesting part of my Tuesday had to be the opportunity to have lunch with several Cisco colleagues and Cisco partners. Edison Peres and Sherri Liebo were both at the lunch, and it is always great to be part of their interaction with partners. Also, I was able to get some great information from partners about their interests leading into Partner Summit 2014. More to come on that information in the next few days…

Cisco Partner Summit 2014

Speaking of this year’s Partner Summit Anna Sui provided all the details on this year’s social media contests, including the Favorite Quote Contest and the Leaderboard Contest.

With Cisco Partner Summit right around the corner, now is the time to check out the rules for our contests so you have the best shot of winning one of the prizes!

Revenue-Generation Marketing

Revenue-generation marketing continues to be a hot topic and Sherri Liebo never fails to deliver insights to how the implementation is going here at Cisco. She provided her thoughts in her most recent revenue-generation blog on Thursday of this week.

Check out the post and join in the conversation.

Just Switch It Promotion

Andres Sintes popped by the Channels Blog early this week. He brought us the details on an exciting promotion to migrate customer switches and wireless access points. If you would like the details on this marketing package that gives you everything you need to encourage clients to evolve their networks, read Andres’ blog!

Good Reads

John Stewart reminded us all about the RSA 2014 Recap

Evelyn de Souza discussed data security through the cloud

Hans Hwang stays ahead of the collaboration requirements curve

Dan Kent looks at the promise for the Internet of Everything (IoE) in the public sector

Stuart Taylor provides observations from Mobile World Congress

Kacey Carpenter gives us highlights from RSA

Keep An Eye Out

Learn how to deploy cloud connectivity for your data center in an upcoming Data Center Design Zone webcast on March 11.

Swing by the Cisco Partner Event calendar for the latest information on Cisco partner gatherings