According to a Cisco Press release at Cisco Partner Summit on 28^th of April,2010 , Cisco Systems and VMware will expand their relationship with the launch of a comprehensive channel acceleration initiative.

Some of the supporting quotes are

·         Ralph Nimergood, vice president, Worldwide Partner Organization, Cisco:

“The Cisco and VMware relationship focuses on delivering solutions that help customers on their journey to building private clouds that deliver IT as a service.  The launch of this initiative will serve as a catalyst with our mutual channel partner community to capitalize and accelerate on the market transition towards data center virtualization and private clouds.”

·         Gary Green, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware:

“VMware vSphere™ and Cisco Unified Computing System comprise an innovative solution that helps customers accelerate their journey to the private cloud. This new initiative will help our mutual channel partners deliver solutions that enable faster time to value for customers while lowering costs.

Targeting mutual channel partners that are Cisco data center specialized and authorized to resell VMware solutions, the initiative includes a wide range of new benefits, including solutions training, solution bundles, financial incentives, funding for virtualization assessments, online demo labs, market enablement and financing.  The initiative will help solution providers derive greater value for their investment in Cisco-VMware capabilities by simplifying the delivery of a complete architecture with the industry-leading Cisco Unified Computing System and VMware vSphere™.  The integrated solution will reduce data center complexity, lower costs and enable a more flexible, agile IT service delivery model.

For more details do check this press release from Cisco Systems.