Cisco takes Letterman-style approach to push UCS savings
Cisco Systems raised the stakes Thursday in the Great Data Center War of 2009--and it didn't involve a new product or strategy announcement.
Instead, the marketing department took to the Web in a David Letterman-type format to explain to a live audience why its new Unified Computing System is the winning solution for the enterprise--and they did it in a unique and fresh way that differentiates the company from its competitors.
Score one for Cisco for taking the conversation into a new direction.
The presentation went straight to the heart of topics that might be confusing some customers, especially as the big players--from HP and IBM to Dell and Sun--make data center announcements of their own.
Cisco marketing executives, who served as guests on the show, tackled topics such as return on investment, integration into existing systems, the use of standard technologies and the ability to scale.
The real-dollar savings that Cisco is emphasizing goes to the heart of what customers want--real ROI numbers--and HP, IBM, Dell and the others will need to cough up some ROI calculations of their own if they want to level this playing field.
As the Cisco executives explained the savings that a company might recognize, they also played up the company’s trump card--networking. The data center is driven by the network and the management software--elements that shouldn’t be after-thoughts or add-ons, the executives said. Cisco, they added, innovated at the networking level to help customers realize even more cost savings. At one point, marketing vice president Soni Jiandani said the "spinal cord of the system is the standard network".
Finally, the company tackled some of the myths that they keep hearing about the shift to a new data center infrastructure. For example, the executives said that it is untrue that the systems are proprietary and won’t play nice with existing systems or competitors equipment. Cisco, they said, is utilizing industry standard components, protocols and APIs.
As it wrapped up its "Cisco TV production", the company hinted that there will be future shows on the Web to continue the conversation and dive in deeper into the concerns that customers might be having as they contemplate data center upgrade decisions.
This article was first published as a blog post on ZDNet.com.