Cisco in focus. Fiscal year-end is end of July 2020 so now is the time to learn how to save millions on Cisco. New Microsoft intel & more.
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The NET(net) Newsletter: June 2020
Pictured above: Glass bottom boat, Near Owens Island, Little Cayman, Cayman Islands, NET(net) Staff.
June 2020 - In This Issue:
Scroll down to see full articles and links.
Market Alert: Cisco in Focus - Fiscal Year-End July 31st
Your Cisco Technology Investments - It's Time for Bold Action: This is a great time to (re)evaluate your strategic investments with Cisco. Here we provide some inspiration.
Financial Services Blog Series: The Biggest Risk Is Not the Loss Itself, But the Reputation: There is an approach and methodology that some our most successful Clients have used. We share some of that below.
Cisco Resources: Here we break down several new and existing resources to help anyone optimize their Cisco estate: Strategic Guide, Case Study, Benchmarks, and related Cisco articles.
Microsoft: COVID-19 Indifference, New Pricing, and Great News (for Microsoft): Most 'offers' were far from sufficient to be of any real help, and in many cases turn out to be great long-term deals....for Microsoft.
Cisco Resources: A breakdown of our Cisco related articles and briefs.
C-Suite on the Move in June: Mattel, Zoom, Juniper, and more.
Your Cisco Technology Investments: The Time for Bold Action is Now
If you’ve been avoiding risk or waiting for the right time to take bold action in reducing both your reliance and cost structure with Cisco – the wait should be over. The market readiness to reduce or eliminate your Cisco dependence is at an all time high with suppliers who are stable, reliable, innovative and eager to win your business. Below we’ll outline how:
The Cisco ecosystem is set up to work against the economics of its own customers
Why their costs are wildly sub-optimized
Present three bold strategies to overcome the market disparity and put you on the path of savings and transformation
Change is difficult for human beings in general, but especially for IT professionals charged with protecting network assets. Click below for entire article:
Financial Services Blog Series: Cyber Security - The Biggest Risk Isn't the the Loss Itself, but the Reputation
Some of you may remember the name Ray Tomlinson. If you’ve never heard of him or can’t recall the name, suffice it to say that he’s had a profound impact on your life. Recently deceased, he is the programmer credited to have invented ‘email’ back in 1971 when he sent an email to himself from one computer to another traveling a network known as ARPANET. Not surprisingly, given Tomlinson invented email, he is also the person who turned the world’s first computer virus “Creeper” into a self-replicating program and then developed a reactionary antivirus program, called “Reaper” to delete it. This would prove to be just the first of many thousands of virus-laden programs that would spawn in the coming decades.
Cyber attacks have occurred throughout the history of the internet and have impacted businesses of all shapes and sizes. Who remembers ILOVEYOU, Sobig and MyDoom, or, more recently, WannaCry. Hackers also targeted companies such as Yahoo, Target, and HomeDepot in 2013, Equifax in 2017 or Facebook in 2019 exposing PII and PFI data to malicious actors. Click below for entire article:
Cisco Resources and Help
Below are additional resources to help with optimizing and saving with your Cisco estate.
Case Study: A brief case study to learn how an International Financial Services client saved millions on Cisco. Link
Strategic Guide: In this brief, we outline the top 10 strategies the enterprise can engage in that will incrementally reduce their Cisco spend. Link
Cisco Benchmark: Sign up for NET(net)'s Savings Cloud Basic program, and you'll receive a full pricing Benchmark and analyst report for your bespoke Cisco environment.
The initial outreach and helping hand that many IT suppliers gave at the onset of the pandemic has already faded. Most offers were not only insufficient to have a real impact, but instead locked companies into less favorable deals long term in exchange for that short-term assistance. We recently wrote another article on this called‘Look That Gift Horse in the Mouth’.
Microsoft has thus far, in our opinion, followed this same path. Despite COVID-19 issues, Microsoft is holding firm on pricing for its Office365 Enterprise Agreement renewals. Further, we see them in many cases offering ‘list price’ and no discounts at all. Click below to read our breakdown of their response:
"Every phase of our engagement with NET(net) was handled with utmost professionalism. Throughout every phase of the process, their team communicated clear expectations on what we should expect and when we should expect it. We were also impressed with the approach and logical sequence of activities that clearly outlined the process by which we would achieve our goals. Given the highly effective collaboration between our teams and the outsized results achieved, we look forward to working with NET(net) again on our vendor optimizations."
CxOs On the Move in June
Jason Lee Appointed as Zoom’s Next Chief Information Security Officer.
