????聯(lián)合品牌：我們在市場推廣中使用的產品名稱是：思科網絡管家，“基于Opsware公司的自動化技術”。

????不計渠道的獎勵政策：Opsware為鼓勵公司的銷售人員支持思科銷售團隊（而不是與其競爭），思科公司在Opsware銷售人員負責的區(qū)域內每做成一筆生意，我們就給予本公司銷售人員一定的獎勵。雖然這個政策花掉我們不少真金白銀，但這樣做合情合理。因為思科每銷售一次產品，就為我們開啟了一扇大門，我們將有機會銷售規(guī)模更大、利潤率更高的產品。

????預防收購措施：我們承諾在簽署出售公司的合約時提前告知思科公司，并給予其競標的機會（如果他們想收購的話）。請注意這項條款跟優(yōu)先購買權（Right of First Refusal）截然不同。

????源代碼許可：我們給了思科一個為期3年的許可證，允許其查看我們的源代碼，并在此基礎上開發(fā)衍生產品，但同時提出了一個創(chuàng)新許可證制度，這項制度不僅給予我們充分的保護，甚至給我們帶來了數(shù)百萬美元的額外收入。不管我們采取了什么行動，我們都認定思科方面永遠不會濫用源代碼，事實證明了我們的正確。

歌利亞兌現(xiàn)諾言

????合作開始后的9個月內，思科公司先后與敦豪速遞（DHL）、好事多（Costco）、斯普林特 （Sprint）、澳洲電訊（Telstra）等公司及美國郵政管理局（USPS）達成了大宗銷售合約。沒過多久，思科公司的銷量就足以超越向Opsware公司所做的季度最低銷售額保證。源自思科方面的銷量很快就占據(jù)了我們公司訂貨量的25%以上。思科公司巨大的分銷能力讓NAS軟件的競爭對手消失得無影無蹤。同樣重要的是，每銷售一款NAS軟件就為我們提供了一個機會，使我們得以向以前從未接觸過的客戶推銷SAS軟件，進而為具有高利潤率的服務器軟件業(yè)務提供了強大的推動力。

????當然，在合作的過程中，我們也面臨許多挑戰(zhàn)。思科的員工在銷售產品時需要接受我們大量的培訓和支持。雙方偶爾因某些客戶而產生爭執(zhí)，最后不得不訴諸于仲裁程序。我們每周都要跟思科公司舉行一次專門的會議，追蹤、推動他們的銷售活動，指引我們后續(xù)的服務器軟件銷售工作。我們不得不確定思科方面提出的產品變化和漏洞修補要求的優(yōu)先次序，融入我們自己的路線圖之中。

????然而，我們能夠泰然自若地處理這些要求，因為我們有專門的銷售和產品管理人員來應對這些問題，而有保證的龐大收入流也讓整個公司意識到，這是一個值得配合的協(xié)議。

????Co-branding: The product was marketed as Cisco Network Compliance Manager, "built on Opsware automation technology".

????Channel-neutral compensation: To motivate Opsware's sales people to support their Cisco sales counterparts instead of competing with them, we compensated them for every Cisco sale in their territory. While this cost us real money, it made sense because every Cisco sale opened the door for us to sell a much bigger, higher-margin product.

????Acquisition insurance: We committed to give Cisco advance notification of any agreement to sell the company, and the opportunity to enter the bidding if they wanted to. (Note this is very different from a Right of First Refusal.)

????Source code license: We gave Cisco a three-year license to view our source code and build on it, but came up with an innovative licensing approach that protected us fully and even generated millions in additional revenue. In any case, we bet they would never actually do anything with the code, and we were right.

Goliath delivers…

????Within nine months, Cisco was selling large network software deals into accounts like DHL, Costco, Sprint, USPS and Telstra, and a short time later, they were selling enough to exceed the quarterly minimum revenue guarantee to Opsware. The Cisco deal would go on to generate over 25% of our bookings. Cisco's massive distribution power vaporized our NAS competitors. Just as important, every NAS sale opened the door for our SAS product in accounts we had never penetrated before, providing a major thrust to our high-margin server business.

????Of course, there were many challenges along the way. Cisco people needed lots of training and support to sell the product. There were occasional conflicts over accounts that had to be arbitrated. We ran a separate weekly pipeline call with Cisco to track and drive their sales and direct our follow-on server sales calls. Product change and bug fix requests from Cisco had to be triaged and folded into our roadmap.

????However, we were able to handle these demands with equanimity, because we had a couple of dedicated heads in sales and product management to handle them, and a large guaranteed revenue stream that helped the whole company to realize this was a deal worth supporting.