Cisco confident over programme accreditation
Networking giant optimistic despite only 15 per cent of partners having fully re-accredited
Networking giant Cisco is confident its channel re-accreditation process is progressing well, despite only 15 per cent of partners having fully re-accredited.
Cisco launched the re-accreditation scheme last March, as part of its new partner programme. Resellers must now sit specialist exams in four areas: wireless LAN, routing and switching, security and unified communications (UC). Of Cisco’s 30 top-level Gold partners, as yet only four have completed all four exams.
But John Donovan, managing director for UK and Ireland channels at Cisco, told CRN that most of the remaining Gold partners had either qualified for two or three specialisations, or had annual renewal dates that were too far off to worry about. He added that the breakdown was similar for Silver and Premier partners.
“We are on track and there are no major issues that we were not already anticipating,” Donovan said.
Cisco recently denied criticism that the Gold badge had lost value (CRN, 10 July), despite the fact that Gold VARs now outweigh Silver partners by two to one.
Jeremy Humphrey, UC director at Cisco Gold partner 2e2, said: “The number of Gold partners was slowly starting to creep up, but hopefully the revamped certification process will sort the wheat from the chaff.”
He argued that Cisco’s recent introduction of Master specialisations in security and UC (CRN, 18 September), will also help ambitious Gold partners differentiate themselves.
Ranjit Dhillon, marketing manager at VAR Lynx Technology, which has just renewed its Cisco Gold status, said: “I can imagine some resellers would say that the number of Gold partners is a concern, but we would not. We look for differentiators and having Cisco Gold is just one piece of the jigsaw.”
Martin St Quinton, chief executive of Cisco Silver partner Azzurri, told CRN: “We may well apply for Gold status and Cisco is pressing us to do that. I don’t think [the volume of Gold resellers] will be a major issue because some do very different things to us.”