Cisco has long been known for its vast partner ecosystem, encompassing resellers, integrators, consultants, and many more from around the globe. But one year ago today, we announced a completely new and, for many in the industry, an unexpected type of partnership.
On November 9th, 2015, Ericsson and Cisco -two industry leaders in networking, mobility, and cloud technologies -formed a next-generation strategic partnership to create the networks of the future.
That dark autumn morning in Sweden, I was sitting in a conference room at Ericsson's Kista headquarters with new colleagues (including Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson's Chief Strategy and Technical Officer, who is as humorous and friendly as he is smart), as we spoke in call after call about our companies' unique comprehensive end-to-end portfolio, global market presence, and a strong cultural fit. How, together, we would be focused on speed, innovation, and growth, and how such a partnership could benefit our customers.
Over the past 365 days, our companies have worked hard to deliver on this vision. We have jointly engaged with more than 250 customers in every region of the globe and have doubled the number of wins each of the last two quarters, most of which we couldn't have won on our own. We've extended the partnership from its original service provider focus to now also include the enterprise and public sector segments with particular demand in transportation, Smart City, and utility areas, as well as into the web segment.
Our global coverage is now complete after recently receiving regulatory approval to now operate in Brazil, and we have increased the scope of technologies being included in the partnership with the addition of security, WiFi and datacenter switching portfolios. Ericsson has also worked aggressively to extend their leading services capability by achieving more than 2,500 Cisco networking certifications or qualifications to better address the IP Transformation needs of customers worldwide.
There is much more that has been accomplished this past year, and while we certainly have still much more to do and have much more still planned, , I didn't want this milestone to pass without thanking our Ericsson colleagues for their partnership, collaboration, and shared desire to help our customers thrive.
LINKS
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/service-provider/cisco-ericsson-partnership.html
PARTNERSHIP PROGRESS