News

BT Achieves Cisco Master Unified Communications Specialization in the U.S.

El Segundo, CA – 28 September 2010 –BT announced today it has achieved the Cisco® Master Unified Communications Specialization in the U.S. This specialization recognizes BT as having fulfilled the training requirements and program prerequisites to sell, deploy and support highly sophisticated applications-based Cisco Unified Communications solutions.

“We are honored to be among the handful of US companies to receive this distinction from Cisco,” said Michael Boustridge, president, BT Global Services, Multi-National Corporations.  “BT’s commitment to further develop our expertise in Unified Communications (UC) will enable us to continue successfully delivering integrated, multiple UC solutions and applications integration in areas such as contact center, unified messaging, rich media, mobility and presence solutions to our MNC customers.”

“To help turn the promise of Unified Communications into a strategic advantage, customers are demanding an enhanced set of skills and capabilities from channel partners,” said Richard McLeod, director of unified communications for worldwide channels at Cisco.  BT’s achievement of the Master Unified Communications Specialization ranks them among the industry’s elite.”

To achieve the Master Unified Communications Specialization, resale channel partners must first attain the Advanced Unified Communications Specialization.  Partners must then meet stringent requirements that demonstrate their master-level sales, technical, and services capabilities.  Furthermore, master specialized partners must possess a number of Cisco and industry-standard technical certification requirements, provide customer references that document Cisco-prescribed design and deployment capabilities, and show evidence that they have the infrastructure to support a full menu of Lifecycle Services offerings and capabilities.

More information regarding the Master Unified Communications Specialization can be found at: http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/program/specializations/ucom/master/index.html

The Cisco Resale Channel Program provides partners with the training required to build sales, technical and Cisco Lifecycle Services skills, and then validates their skills through a third-party audit.  Cisco resale partner certifications — Select, Premier, Silver and Gold — represent an increasing breadth of skills across key technologies and a partner’s ability to deliver integrated networking solutions.  Cisco resale partner specializations — SMB, Express, Advanced and Master — reflect an increasing depth of sales, technical and service expertise in particular technologies.  Cisco master specializations provide BT access to comprehensive sales, technical, and lifecycle services training and support available from Cisco.