Cisco Channel Chief's Video Message to Partners

“And now, a special economic message from our channel chief.” That sums up recent moves by Microsoft, Dell and now Cisco Systems. All three companies have put their channel chiefs front-and-center with blog, podcast and video messages to partners in recent days. The latest nugget comes from Cisco Worldwide Channel Chief Keith Goodwin (pictured). Here’s the scoop (and the video).

Did The VAR Guy learn a whole lot from the messages? Perhaps not. But the latest Web 2.0 content from Goodwin describes three steps Cisco is taking to march forward with partners.

Speaking Directly to Partners

To Cisco’s credit, Goodwin is on message. So too was Dell Channel Chief Greg Davis (pictured, right) in a podcast published earlier this week — though much of Davis’s messaging focused on basic themes like server consolidation and virtualization.

One Software Giant, Many Brands

The big head-scratcher remains Microsoft’s decision to re-publish a letter from Channel Chief Allison Watson (pictured, left) to partners. The November 2008 letter, which surfaced this week in a Microsoft partner blog, is a double-edged sword.

Watson does a solid job highlighting all of the Microsoft products partners can evangelize during the down economy. But Microsoft’s product portfolio is now filled with confusing brands that many partners have yet to master.

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