Cisco's Connected Home strategy

Cisco Systems unveiled a number of new home audio and network attached storage products as part of its connected home strategy at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas, writes IT World.

A channel executive says the new offerings will mean new opportunities for the channel and a tweaking of the company's distribution model.

The new offerings include Cisco Eos, a software platform that includes analytics and site management tools for digital content providers, such as music labels, to deliver content to consumers across a variety of media and devices.

A big chunk of Oracle's recent layoffs came in the company's channel-facing groups, according to Oracle partners, reports IT Channel.

Oracle cut between 500 and 800 jobs this month, and it appears a big chunk of them were in channel management and Oracle Direct, the company's telesales operation.

Oracle has not acknowledged the layoffs, and a spokeswoman would not comment on whether the layoffs disproportionately affected channel-related employees.

Resellers heard about a boost to partner incentives and education to boost IP-based telecommunications sales at Siemens Enterprise Communications' annual partner conference, in Leicester recently, states ChannelWeb.

Leon Mangan, indirect channel sales director at Siemens Enterprise Communications, said the talkfest rolled out some new partner promotions and tools to kick off what is widely expected to be a difficult year in many markets, as well as showcasing the vendor's new HiPath products.

“We really want to help resellers move the migrations forward from traditional TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) with the IP products,” he said.