Proact sanguine about losing Cisco Gold badge

Storage integrator claims its relegation is 'no big thing'

Proact has remained positive about its loss of Cisco Gold partner status, citing a change in its business as the reason.

The pan-European storage integrator said it lost its Gold partner badge with Cisco around the end of July. Mark Butcher, commercial director at Proact, said losing the status was a reflection of the way his firm has changed over the past seven years.

"Since around 2007 we have been delivering cloud services and in that time we have moved from being a classic VAR to more of a service provider, and our focus has changed from being a generalist Gold partner-type reseller to being a specialist service provider," Butcher said.

Cisco Gold status is one of the channel's most rigorous and highly prized badges, with members of the club required to employ at least four Cisco CCIE engineers and hold a string of architectural specialisations with the vendor.

But, according to Butcher, maintaining the Gold certification with Cisco meant "us having a significant investment in time and energy which we could better focus elsewhere".

"It's certainly something we saw as being no big thing," Butcher said. "The days have gone of that kind of certification being a massive differentiator."

Despite Proact losing its Gold partner status at the end of July, it did not change the information on its website until 9 October.

Butcher said it was alerted to the error by a representative from Cisco and it has now changed the firm's website to read:

"Today, Proact maintains the highest level of accreditation and certifications with Cisco, both as a Premier Business Partner and a Cisco Managed Services Channel Partner, across their most significant technology architectures covering Borderless Networks, Datacentre & Virtualisation Networks and Collaboration & Communication Networks."

A source from a Cisco partner, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "It's important that the people who put in the investment and continue to maintain their Cisco Gold partner status stand out from the crowd rather than the people who just put logos on their website."

Proact posted its fourth straight quarter of annual pre-tax profit growth yesterday, despite witnessing declines at its UK business.