"Much of the channel's current emphasis is on advanced networking technologies such as IP telephony," said IDC channels research director Ken Presti. "Cisco's Foundation Advantage Program provides the partners with useful tools and incentives to help them deploy the updated network infrastructure needed to support those higher-end technologies. This will ultimately help partners not only sell the technologies, but also to segment the solutions into smaller, sequential projects that are more in-line with their customers' budgets."
"The networking market is in a dramatic transition and there is a multi-billion dollar network infrastructure upgrade opportunity for Cisco channel partners," said John Donovan, Managing Director - Channels, Cisco Systems UK & Ireland. "Several factors are converging at once to create this market dynamic, from an aging Y2K installed base and the rapid pace of advanced networking technologies, to the increase in customer business application requirements. Foundation Advantage is designed to help channel partners profitably upgrade their customer's to more advanced Cisco networking solutions."