Cisco, HP Examine Rival Partner Conference Agendas

Call it a case of Spy vs. Spy in the IT Channel. By now, you know the Cisco Partner Summit and HP Americas Partner Conference are scheduled for the same week in April. Now here’s the twist: Cisco and HP seem to be studying each other in order to apply some final polish to their respective partner conference agendas. Here are the details.

In recent days, The VAR Guy has received multiple inquiries from VARs and solutions providers looking for more information about the Cisco Partner Summit and HP Americas Partner Conference. It seems like plenty of folks are trying to coordinate travel across both conferences, which run the week of April 25, 2010. Of course, our resident blogger has details on the Cisco event and the HP event.

The VAR Guy hears HP has closely studied Cisco’s agenda in recent weeks. And now, Cisco insiders apparently are returning the favor — taking a close look at HP’s agenda. One key question: When will HP CEO Mark Hurd take the stage? Hmmm… The VAR Guy intends to find the answer.

Brocade Gets Cozy With HP

In the meantime, The VAR Guy notes that Brocade is on the HP agenda to sponsor a welcome reception on April 26. Sure, Brocade competes a bit with HP on the Ethernet front. And Brocade recently hired former HP ProCurve executive John McHugh as VP and chief marketing officer.

But Brocade’s storage expertise coupled with HP’s networking and server expertise provides a potential counter punch to Cisco’s Unified Computing System.

The VAR Guy expects to hear more when he lands at the HP Americas Partner Conference… before heading on to Cisco Partner Summit 2010.

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