Microsoft Partners with Cisco to Modernize Data Centers

Networking solutions giant Cisco today announced a multi-year agreement with software giant Microsoft to modernize data centers. The partnership was announced at Microsoft (News - Alert)'s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington.

Under this partnership, both the firm will invest in joint sales, engineering and marketing resources to accelerate integrated solutions for enterprise and service provider data centers.

Cisco (News - Alert) and Microsoft will align partner incentive programmes to accelerate solutions selling via mutual channel partners.

The sales teams of both companies will work together on cloud and data center opportunities, including an initial program focused on the migration of Windows 2003 customers to Windows 2012 R2 on the Cisco UCS platform.

Cisco and Microsoft will align partner incentive programs to accelerate solutions selling via mutual channel partners.

In the first year, the firms will focus on six countries—the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, and Australia—with expansion to additional countries in the following years.

Frank Palumbo, senior vice President, Global Data Center and Virtualization Sales, Cisco said, "From innovative technologies and global brands to specialized channel partners, Cisco and Microsoft have the ingredients to transform the traditional data center. Now we're expanding our long-standing technical partnership with Microsoft with an aggressive global go-to-market and sales initiative. By providing our customers and partners with greater sales alignment and even deeper technology integration we will help them transform their data centers and accelerate the journey to the cloud."

Frank Palumbo, Senior Vice President, Global Data Center and Virtualization Sales, Cisco  said in a statement, " Now we're expanding our long-standing technical partnership with Microsoft with an aggressive global go-to-market and sales initiative. By providing our customers and partners with greater sales alignment and even deeper technology integration we will help them transform their data centers and accelerate the journey to the cloud."