Cisco Channel Chief: Managed Services Still Growing Swiftly

Cisco Systems Channel Chief Edison Peres

Plus, FusionStorm CTO Vince Conroy — a long-established Cisco partner — connects the dots between managed services and cloud computing. You’ll find all of that chatter in this FastChat video:

The Same… But Different

Clearly, the line between managed services and cloud computing is quite blurry. And to be candid: There wasn’t much managed services talk during today’s Cisco Partner Summit keynotes. Still, in multiple private meetings Cisco executives told me how the managed services industry paved the way for Cisco’s new Cloud Partner Program.

I’m hardly surprised. Most MSPs, for instance, have pushed beyond PSA (professional services automation) and RMM (remote monitoring and management) software. Most the MSPs I hear from now offer white labeled services in the areas of online backup, security as a service and hosted email. But Cisco Systems is going one step further, promising partners that the networking giant will not compete with service providers.

Instead, Cisco wants to empower cloud builders, cloud service providers and cloud resellers — much in the way that Cisco already works with managed services providers. It sounds simple enough. But MSPmentor will be watching to see just how many MSPs sign up to become Cisco cloud partners.

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