Cisco and Microsoft announced integration of their technologies — targeting data centers.
Announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference today, the three-year initiative through the delivery of integrated solutions will target enterprise customers and service providers.
Cisco and Microsoft will invest in sales, marketing and engineering resources to drive global alignment, while delivering technology integration across cloud and data center markets.
The companies will focus on integrating technologies, including Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco Nexus switching and Microsoft Cloud OS solutions including Windows Server, System Center, SQL Server and Microsoft Azure.
The United States, Canada, UK, Germany, France, and Australia will be focused in the first year of the deal, said Cisco.
The initiative will be expanded to additional countries later.
Cisco and Microsoft will align partner incentive programs to accelerate solutions selling via mutual channel partners.
Cisco and Microsoft sales teams 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.
Stephen Boyle, vice president, Worldwide Enterprise & Partners Group, Microsoft, said: “Enterprise customers worldwide are betting on Microsoft and Cisco to realize the benefits of our combined cloud and datacenter technologies.”