The companies said their Global Services Alliance, which is already in operation in the US to service joint customers, is to be expanded into 46 countries worldwide, including Australia, most of Europe and the Asia Pacific.
The collaboration means that IBM customers who purchase Cisco networking technology solutions will now get a globally consistent level of IT infrastructure support.
The companies said its advantage for customers was that it combined IBM's extensive service delivery capabilities with Cisco's technical expertise in one integrated support offering.
IBM would market the services offering under the name "IBM managed maintenance solution for Cisco products," while working with Cisco to deliver the service.
IBM would provide the customer with consolidated call management for all networking devices and would retain responsibility for resolving customer issues, the companies said.
“Providing a collaborative maintenance service offering means our mutual customers will no longer need to choose between Cisco networking skills or IBM multi-vendor systems integrator capabilities,” Cisco vice-president Karl Meulema said.
“Instead customers get the collective expertise of both companies,” he said.
For more IT Service news, click here.
