Changes to how Cisco is dealing with and licensing software, which we wrote about last week here on FierceEnterpriseCommunications, is having an impact on how the company is targeting the cloud market.

The networking vendor has tried various approaches to the cloud market over the past couple of years without spectacular results, as TechTarget notes in a recent article. However, the latest changes to its software strategy, including the recently introduced Cisco ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite, may finally put the company in position to offer customers some value.

The TechTarget article quoted Dave Bartoletti, principal analyst with Forrester Research: “They’re going out with their strength, which is connectivity between all these clouds rather than differentiating with one cloud itself. Cisco wants to be the glue that connects all your clouds together and not battle it out with commodity vendors for cloud servers.”

It’s a strategy that makes sense for Cisco, at least considering its hardware heritage. Ever since cloud started to become the next big thing, Cisco has tried to stay out of the cloud services game, instead trying to educate and back its channel partners. That changed a little bit last year with the launch of the Cisco Intercloud strategy, but even that still relies on partners.

SOURCE: fierceenterprisecommunications.com