VARs criticise Cisco Shared Support plan
Scheme will allegedly see vendor's services linked to product sales
Cisco partners have criticised a plan by the company to introduce linked purchases of its Shared Support services with its products.
Partners have told CRN that at the end of this month Cisco wants its Gold Partners to buy Shared Support - a joint services and support contract - with kit for at least the first year.
"Cisco will charge me for a year's Shared Support on everything I buy, regardless of whether the end-user buys it or not," alleged a Gold Partner, who asked to remain anonymous.
"This will affect our customers because it's inflating their maintenance costs."
Instead of a single charge to get access to Cisco's Technical Assistance Centre, part of Shared Support, Gold Partners have said they will now be charged on an annual basis. It's believed the annual cost could be a third of the old one-off charge.
"This makes sense for three years, but it will cost much more than it used to for longer than that," said Arman Khan, managing partner at 3net.
However, Peter Halls, chief executive of Omnetica, a Cisco Gold Partner, took a positive view.
"We've been negotiating with Cisco for 12 to 15 months to make sure what we ended up with was good for our customers, us, and Cisco," he said.
"We've tried to put a practical slant on a terrific programme. We are quite happy now that it's being implemented in the UK by Omnetica in a practical manner.
"If you haven't got the infrastructure, it's probably quite an awesome undertaking. We are currently maintaining $400m to $500m worth of kit in the field."
Halls added that the changes to Cisco's services charging are the first since 1998, and that most of the concern he has seen in the market was about transition.
"When it's all up and running in three years' time it will be less of a problem," Halls said.
Cisco was unavailable for comment as CRN went to press.