Cisco has done it again -with the latest Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) launch, Cisco continues to build upon a successful platform while opening new market and business growth opportunities for our partners, and providing a means to address a larger portion of customers' computing needs. Today, Cisco announced the largest portfolio expansion for Cisco UCS since the launch of the product five years ago. The new platforms will propel partners to a new level in driving customers' business outcomes.

This is not just another product launch though. The new lineup allows our partners to provide technology solutions that transform how customers deliver IT -across all market segments and with positive and sustained impact to their business.  Here's what's new on the product side:

• UCS Mini provides the full power of Cisco Unified Computing in a smaller, all-in-one solution that is simple, easy to manage, yet expandable.
• UCS M-Series Modular Servers for Online Content Providers and Cloud Service Providers and for distributed applications in Industrial High Performance Computing (HPC) and Enterprise Grid.
• Cisco UCS C3160 Rack Server is a modular, capacity-optimized solution ideal for distributed data analytics, unstructured data repositories and media streaming and transcoding.
• Cisco M4 Generation UCS Rack and Blade Servers are armed with the latest processing power providing increased performance, efficiency and computing density.

With these introductions, Cisco continues to lead the industry with a unified, application-centric approach to computing, but you're probably already asking, "What does that mean for me?" Well, we are always looking to expand the market for our partners and these additions to the UCS portfolio provide some pretty nice angles to you when you step into the room with customers.

The UCS Mini provides new lower cost entry points and is scaled to meet the needs of lower end midmarket and Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) customers.  With its scale and cost optimization for these customers, the UCS Mini enables partners to capture new customers as well as address more of existing customers' environment.  It also delivers all the benefits of UCS that make it such a powerful platform, including UCS Manager and UCS Central.

The UCS M-Series Modular Servers allow partners to extend Unified Computing into an entirely new segment of applications.  With this offering, partners can pursue opportunities with customers who deploy new classes of distributed applications as well as traditional enterprise grid / commercial HPC applications. The UCS M-Series also supports service provider entry-level dedicated hosting, cloud services and cloud content delivery.

The UCS C3160 Rack Server features capacity-optimized local disk, opening up partner opportunities with new customers and increasing partners' reach with existing customers by supporting applications requiring large local disk capacity in the server.

Cisco's 4^thgeneration rack and blade servers fuel server refresh and consolidation opportunities for partners selling into their existing UCS customer base.

Finally, all these UCS innovations help partners extend UCS technology leadership as Cisco expands its portfolio during a time when many competitors are stalled or exiting the x86 server business altogether.

When you add it all up, we expect to see these benefits for our partners:

1. Accelerated revenue in the existing customer base by addressing a  broader set of existing customer workloads
2. An expanded portfolio allowing partners to capture new customers
3. Realization of the potential of the Unified Data Center to address customers' IT needs

Since the beginning, our channel partners have played a pivotal role in the success of Cisco UCS. You took the journey with us when many doubted our ability to compete in this market. In five years, you have propelled us to great heights and we intend to work with you to climb even higher.

With more than 80 percent of all Cisco UCS sales going through our channel partners, we have grown to#1 in the US and#2 worldwide in x86 blade server market.  Of course we are excited about the potential of these latest innovations but we want to know what you think. Let me know your thoughts on our latest launch in the comments section. I always welcome your feedback.

One final note, if you were unable to join the UCS partner launch event, please visit the partner launch page for more resources and information.