Boston, US: 'During hard times, you run faster to keep pace,' keeping this mantra in mind, in its three-day Partner Summit, Cisco unveiled one offering after the other for various business segments. Whether it was unified communication (UC) or small business (SBs), they unveiled products, trainings and new partner programs. The partner summit had something for everyone.

While elaborating about the importance of small business, Rick Moran, VP-Small Business Networking, Cisco said, "Small businesses are essential since 70 per cent of all new jobs that are created worldwide are done in this segment. Also SBs are able to capitalize on economic growth faster than any large company."

Adding further, Ian Pennel, Sr VP-SB Technology, Cisco said, "In the SB segment one size does not fit all. That is the reason why we have more than 100 products already available as our offering for the segment. And to add further value proposition for our partners, we are launching new products under Cisco SB Pro series and all the Linksys products are being rebranded as Cisco SB products."

The new Small Business Pro line-up includes the ESW 500 Series switch and the SPA8800 IP Telephony gateway, which allows customers to connect their open source IP PBX to existing analogue phones and fax machines.

A new introduction in the SB series is PVC300 IP camera. Coinciding with the launch, Cisco also doubled rebate amounts for SMB accredited partners and introduced a Small Business Performance Accelerator aimed at improving partner profitability. It also tweaked its training programs to ensure that partners are in line with Cisco's go-to-market strategy in the segment.

Announcing special offers for partners and resellers, Andrew Sage, VP-Small Business Sales Worldwide, Cisco said, "We are looking at giving enhanced profitability to our sub-distribution and reseller partners. We are announcing instant discounts of up to five to seven per cent on projects which see migration from Linksys to Cisco SB series products. That apart there are some more incentive price schemes that we are unveiling. We are also looking at driving business or live leads to partners from our website. Also, for our partners, we have a new 'Buy Now' button on specific products on the website which would give them the advantage of sourcing products at special low prices for a stipulated period of time."

Day two of the summit saw a focus on technology and unified communication. It also saw all the keynote speakers taking a jibe at the newly unveiled HP and Microsoft Unified Communication tie-up.

In his keynote,  Don Proctor, Senior VP-Software, Cisco taking a jibe at the alliance said, "HP and Microsoft's approach lacks networking credibility of its own. I am doubtful that customers will be willing to make a forklift upgrade from Cisco's existing technology to adopt this new set of solutions." Proctor also claimed that the agenda behind the tie-up was that HP and MS wanted to go direct to the customers and cut the partners out of the immense opportunity that existed."