Re: Benefits of choosing a Cisco gold partner company.

Dude - OIP is only going to get you in the 40's % discount range.

Unless Cisco is going to go direct or there is a special case they are not dropping or authorizing partners to go into the 60's % - and like I said if/when they do they are one-off special cases.

Even on 100% competitor forklifts they don't drop that low.

As a Gold or otherwise, you can play with the service numbers etc... to make it look like what you want, but I have seen partners stripped of various advantages for undercutting HW.

As for talent, Cisco will guide you towards better partners, and I have seen them steer clear of other less performing partners. I am sitting in a few accounts now because of poor performance on two other regionals, and stellar performance on our part. You can also rely somewhat on the Customer Satisfaction numbers - all fives for multiple years running is usually a good sign. Cisco will also provide you reference accounts in some cases. Take a look at the technologies you are integrating as well. For instance, you will typically be better served by a Master UC or Master Security partner in those specialized areas because of the additional uplift to obtain and maintain the credential. But with that being said, I know a ton of independents out there that specialize in a few things, and they partner with each other. They can keep the service pricing down, and often enough they go to a big box like CDW for the HW number.

If you are in the gov't space you have an AM that at least serves your agency/organization - they can get you more details and steer you in the right direction. If you do not know who that is, call Cisco's gov't guys and they will surely get you to the right people.

r/w

On Apr 14, 2010, at 7:17 AM, Radioactive Frog wrote:

It finally boils down to the $$$. Gold partner gets an average of 60%
discount from Cisco and its depends on how much they want to pass onto it to
end customer.
obviously you can get a very good engineer without a CCIE with non gold
partners.

my 000002 cents

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 10:05 PM, Mahmoud Nossair <nossair_at_mcs.gov.sa>wrote:

> Dear Experts
>
>
>
> I am a consultant at a government site ( I am a CCNP engineer), while
> evaluating a network proposals, one of the government employee asked me
> why should we choose a company with Cisco Gold partner????
>
> I explained him about the support and other benefits, but I think my
> answer in not enough to him.
>
>
>
> So anybody have a document about the benefits of Cisco Gold Partner to
> the customers???
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance
>
>
>
> Mahmoud Nossair, CCNP, CCDP
>
>
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>
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Received on Wed Apr 14 2010 - 22:23:31 ART