Cisco 'liberated' under Robbins - partners

Cisco partners say Robbins' new era is off to a strong start after his first partner summit as CEO

Resellers have said Cisco has been "liberated" under Chuck Robbins, and the vendor has its "edge" back now.

Last week Cisco held its first partner summit with Robbins as CEO, after former leader John Chambers stepped down and became executive chairman last summer. Resellers have come away feeling happy with the direction its new boss is taking.

Justin Harling, managing director of Cisco Gold partner CAE, said he felt there was immediacy to Cisco's rhetoric at the event which was perhaps lacking in previous years.

"Messaging over the past couple of years has been talking about the visionary stuff, which is great, but we want things we can go back straight away and start talking to customers [about]," he said. "[The event] really delivered on that; there is a bite and an edge to Cisco right now.

"The way they are building the infrastructure at the moment - and that applies to security and to HyperFlex [its new hyper-converged product] - they are building on what they already have, and it's impressive," he added. "We have been waiting for some time for the relevance of this [message] to come, and that's come out really strongly which is what the market needs right now.

"If you look at where they are, and what other people have to do, because they have split or are about to merge; you think they are back to the stage of being years ahead of the competition in certain areas. I'd admit HyperFlex is catching up a bit, but it's a tangible point. The cloud messaging probably hasn't been tangible, but now it definitely is."

He also said that Robbins has instilled a different feeling to the company, from his predecessor.

"It's like the technology units have been set free to do their thing, to just get out there," he said. "They understand the market and they have always understood the market but it seems like they have been liberated at the moment. Some of their messaging felt a little bit held back last year. Let's face it, John [Chambers] is a tough act to follow, but for the first time we have seen Chuck's [Robbins] stamp.

"It's not a 'hey, this is the Chuck show'; he has been able to put together a really strong and coherent management team at this point, which is impressive. We are coming away this year with more confidence than we have had over the last couple of years."

Harling's comments were echoed by Chris Gabriel, chief digital officer at Logicalis Europe, who felt that Robbins offers a different approach.

"What Chuck [Robbins] brought was a salesman's [approach]," He said. "I came out of Robbins' presentation and he didn't actually say that much; he said 'we are here to talk digital, we think it's going to impact us, we have some product announcements, I'll tell you a little on that'. That was the least I'd heard from a Cisco leader in eight years, but it was the most I'd heard in terms of value."