Cisco Systems and HP
extended their global partnership today, one that promises to deliver support services via a single point of contact to enterprises.
“HP Network Support Combined with Cisco Services” will be a co-branded effort and builds on a deal the two companies signed in June under the Cisco Global Services Alliance program.
At the outset, the program will provide customers with network support, problem resolution as well as extending Cisco product knowledge and expertise via a single source point of contact. The two companies said “over time” the offering will be expanded to a more robust solution set encompassing a full IT enterprise lifecycle of services from planning through deployment, management and support.
“As partners for more than 15 years, Cisco and HP continually are advancing their alliance to best meet the needs of their joint customers and to deliver the best total customer experience in the industry,” Mike Rigodanzo, senior vice president, Technology Services, HP told internetnews.com. “The single point of contact helps our global customers realize a greater return on their investment.”
“There is a ‘better together’ message for our customers that we believe will mean good things for the growth of our joint business,” he added.
The single point of contact promised by the new offer will be billed to customers via HP.
“The ‘HP Network Support Combined with Cisco Services,’ our co-brand offer, is based on an HP contract,” Rigodanzo explained. “It is priced at the same level as Cisco’s branded SMARTnet offer.”
Rigondanzo went on to note that there are other partners in Cisco’s program, but HP is the first partner for Cisco to publicly announce as joining Cisco’s Global Services Alliance program.
This new partnership extension aside, HP and Cisco are also still competitors in the networking space. At the beginning of November HP announced a new line of its ProCurve stackable switching products in an attempt to maintain its No. 2 position behind Cisco’s 60 percent market share dominance.
