Cisco, today, announced the commencement of a comprehensive Cloud Partner Program for partners to effectively monetize the opportunities in the multi-billion dollar cloud computing space. With this, Cisco becomes the first infrastructure OEM to offer a cloud partner program, which rewards partners not only to build clouds on Cisco infrastructure but also to act as cloud providers and resell cloud services. The new program provides partners flexibility and empowers them to maximize their profitability by offering their own brand of Cloud Services Practice that is powered by Cisco.

Commenting on the roll out of the Cloud Partner Program, B Raghavendran, Vice President, Partner Organization at Cisco India & SAARC said, “Cisco’s Cloud Partner Program will enable partners to be adequately prepared to meet the large-scale demand for adoption of cloud services by customers in the coming years. This is a first in the industry where the designation is built on the validation of both Cisco and Non-Cisco competencies necessary to build a cloud. The partner will see an additional return on their Cisco and partner investments by leveraging them into a role they can play in the Cloud market. We expect to see the first set of partners being certified on the program, before the end of 2011”.

The program aims to supplement the investments in certifications from Cisco so partners can leverage the cloud opportunity at a faster pace and lower cost. Under the aegis of this program, Cisco will also offer intellectual property and training on best practices to help partners increase their expertise in the cloud computing segment. Additional benefits of this program include branding offer creation support, through the Cisco, our “Jumpstart” financing, market development funding and programmatic access to channel partners as a route to market. Cisco will supplement this thrust by aligning its sales policies internally and providing branding assistance to cloud partners, to sharpen their marketing capabilities.

Cloud Computing has emerged as one of the top technology priorities for information technology professionals according to a study by market researcher Gartner. The study estimates that nearly 50% of all CIO’s expect to shift the majority of their applications/infrastructures to the cloud by 2015. In lieu of this seismic shift in technology consumption, the CCP program was created, so that partners can migrate to the cloud easily and profitably. Partners will be given the option to play one, more or all of the three roles and capitalize on the opportunities across the cloud value chain.