Resellers have given a frosty reception to Cisco’s partner programme changes as the vendor moves its focus to ‘advanced technologies’.

The announcement, hailed by the networking giant as “the most significant in the past five years”, was exclusively revealed by CRN last week (CRN, 13 March).

Keith Goodwin, Cisco’s senior vice-president of worldwide channels, said: “The changes we made to the partner programme are an example of our proactive efforts to address the shifting nature of networking technology, the market, and customer demands.

“All Cisco certifications – Gold, Silver and Premier – will require channel partners to demonstrate expertise in a broader array of Cisco’s ‘advanced technologies’.”

A new accreditation level has also been formed called Master, which is the highest level a partner can obtain in advanced technology. Goodwin said partners have two years to prepare for the new specialisation and certification requirements.

“The programme changes make new demands on partners. We realise that channel partners will have to dedicate extra time and resources to training,” Goodwin admitted.

Mike Lawrence, managing director of Cisco reseller Bentpenny, said: “Cisco will milk the channel for two years of training, bring out new kit and then do it all over again. I don’t hear anything positive [in the announcement] for resellers, except that they have to pay more money for training.”

Mark O’Hara, managing director of Cisco VAR Hydra, said: “Cisco has done very little to help smaller VARs over the years, so is anything going to change? Probably not. I wonder if this is just another way to get more money from resellers?”

Gary Duke, sales director at Cisco reseller LAN 2 LAN, said: “You will get some people that are annoyed with the changes, but it is a necessary evil. It is a pain because [resellers] will have to take their best sales people away to train.”

Bernie Dodwell, European security manager of Cisco distributor Westcon, said: “The principals [of the announcement] are right, but I am a little cynical about the costs for partners.”

trevor_treharne@vnu.co.uk