Day 3 of the Summit is underway with Cisco small business announcements. Want to see the video I produced and catch the vibes from the Summit? Click below

Highlights of the small business announcements include:

Products – some new managed switching gear, video surveillance solutions and v1.5 of SBCS (IP phone system + collaboration platform)

Services – New 3-year, low priced support for Cisco products

Partner programs – new incentives, increased rebates, partner financing of equipment

Support – Cisco call center and web-tools to help partners and customers

Good stuff

Greetings from Cisco Partner Summit 2009 from Boston, Massachusetts. Boston is home of the Red Sox, Boston clam chowdah and John F. Kennedy. With beautiful weather today it’s a fitting location for Cisco’s announcement of 6 new architectures. Architectural plays are globally coordinated, cross-functional roadmaps helping Cisco delivers unique value to its customers and channels. Architectural technology can include applications, network services and infrastructure optimized to deliver a competitive advantage for Cisco.

My task is to translate the Cisco architecture language into SMB-friendly notions. Not always an easy task I must admit, but it’s early in the day. Let’s see how I do.

Architecture #1 – Service provider IP next generation network (NGN). Obviously this architecture is focused on driving the next generation of intelligent, efficient, scalable IP networking into service provider markets. At some point way down the supply-chain, this should help more small businesses become connected to the information superhighway. In the U.S. over 90% of SMBs are connected to the internet, no so globally. In the developing world, having 10% SMBs with Internet connectivity is a milestone. NGNs help connect our world and increase the standards of living across the globe.

Architecture #2 – Collaboration. We’ve done quite a bit of work on collaboration and the workforce of tomorrow. In fact, Josh Holbrook just did a webinar on the very topic.

Imagine SMB employees being able to collaborate using voice, text, video over fixed and wireless networks. Have you ever seen a college student on a computer? Multiple stimuli, multiple streams of input/output are the norm. As Rebecca Jacoby, Cisco’s CIO stated today, the technology environments for enterprises (and SMBs) must support innovation and operational excellence at the same time. Collaboration fuels both.

Architecture #3 – Data center. This one is a stretch for SMBs. There aren’t a heap of SMBs building rich, robust data center environments, however, SMBs do take advantage of hosted data center environments offered by service providers. The technologies – virtualization, security and green IT to name a few — these service providers use in their data centers can give medium businesses future business advantages.

Architecture #4 – Borderless Network. Imagine SMB employees being able to access data or applications wherever they are on any device. Yankee Group’s mission is founded on this concept, Yankee Group being the global connectivity experts. To Cisco a borderless network allows the agile delivery of new applications while allowing more simple management, security, scaling and governance of the network. Lofty goals for SMBs, but all very relevant.

Architecture #5 – Small Business. I’ll treat this architectural approach in a separate vodcast and blog posted tomorrow when the news is public, but suffice it to say Cisco continues to address SMB in a cross-functional, globally coordinated manner.

Architecture #6 – Consumer. The lower end of SMB markets takes many cues from consumer segments, so attention to this architectural approach is important. We haven’t heard much on the consumer architecture, but maybe more later.

Those are the 6 Cisco architectures for 2009 through the eyes of a humble SMB analyst. Time to grab a bottle of Sam Adams beer.

Verizon Wireless announced, or more aptly reminded small businesses that it has 2,500 retail stores just waiting to take care of their needs with special trained staff and resources. My SMB sensitivities make me pause: I’m not sure what to make of this reminder.

The good: Verizon Wireless continues to place more and more emphasis on SMB markets as distinct from large enterprise and consumer markets. Yankee Group has long researched SMB markets using the four critical SMB business needs as our overarching framework. All technology solutions must address at least one of these business needs, and the best can address all four. This Verizon announcement recognizes SMBs’ needs for external support – the fourth SMB business need. Knowing SMBs don’t have deep internal resources they must rely on trusted advisors and partners to help with many tasks, some of which are technology and IT related. Verizon Wireless stores and their staff provide such support.

The bad: Retail channels are not conducive to creating deep, rich relationships between small businesses and technology vendors. In an applications-centric mobility world, will Verizon Wireless expect a small business owner to drive to a retail store when having an integration problem with their in-office unified communications (mobile and fixed voice, video and data) solution?

Verizon needs to create unique value propositions of each of its channels to the SMB. We understand the value a strong company-owned retail channel brings to Verizon, but what’s good for the consumer goose isn’t always good for the SMB gander. Other technology vendors rely on and publicize the unique value of all their SMB channels for sales and support, recognizing that SMBs choose between channel outlets based on the business challenges they face at a given time. For example, sometimes an SMB will seek support/sales at a retail store or via DMR. Other times the same SMB might need a VAR/agent for on-premises sales and support.

The otherwise: Verizon Wireless has not crafted a coherent, primary research-supported story to convince me of their deep understanding of the SMB mobility market. SMB marketing is a skill and art form requiring the careful matching of solutions, segments, market messaging and channels. They need this story so they can better articulate their message to stakeholders in the SMB ecosystem – a large ecosystem including retail store employees, big-box retailers, indirect channel partners, application development communities, Verizon OSS/BSS resources, Verizon network operations, Verizon online resources and SMB customers/prospects. IT vendors like Cisco have grappled with this process. And most recently forward-looking MSOs have been engaging on this same issue as they contemplate their wireless SMB strategies.

Kudos to Verizon Wireless for putting more resources behind their SMB efforts. We look forward to a wireless industry invigorated with SMB success.