MCI And Cisco Team Up To Increase Growth In SMB Market

MCI (www.mci.com) and Cisco Systems, Inc., (www.cisco.com) today announced the two companies will collaborate to enable Cisco channel partners to address the diverse needs of today's small and medium-sized business (SMB)customers by selling IP-based next generation services.

"IP-based services are becoming ever more essential to businesses of all sizes," said Phil Meeks, senior vice president of MCI Strategic Ventures and Alliances.

Expanding on its decade-long relationship, MCI and Cisco will work together to create advanced networking services for SMB customers. The resulting products and network enhancements, including security offerings, will enable joint MCI and Cisco SMB customers to find new ways of doing business and increase overall productivity.

By combining resources, both companies are able to offer SMBs a larger selection of voice, data and security solutions and products. In addition, both companies plan to offer network-based and premise-based solutions, such as MCI's VoIP service MCI Advantage and Cisco's Call Manager and Call Manager Express, giving SMBs greater flexibility when it comes to network and application implementations.

In February 2004, MCI announced its global Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)-based service - Private IP - had earned the Cisco Powered Network designation.

Beginning immediately, Cisco channel partners will be able to offer customers MCI's hosted VoIP solution, MCI Advantage. MCI Advantage is one of the industry's first network-based VoIP solutions designed to provide customers with everything they need to maximize their network investments and consolidate local, long distance and data services across a single MCI IP network solution.

"Our company is focused on addressing the needs of the small and medium sized business market and today our customers want and need complete solutions to maximize their ability to compete in their market segment," said Bob Urick, President of Network Resources, a Premier Cisco Certified channel partner.