Cisco becomes a Windows Server reseller

Six months ago, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers held a joint press conference to showcase their growing relationship with a few demos of Cisco-Microsoft interoperability. Now, they've taken that relationship to the next level with a joint branch office product.

Later this year, Cisco will begin including a bare-bones installation of Windows Server 2008 in its Wide Area Application Services appliances, which do WAN optimization and application acceleration. The initial appliances will add local print, directory, and domain services to Cisco's own capabilities via Server Core, a new trimmed down command-line Windows Server installation option.

Though Cisco includes elements of embedded versions of Windows in other products, this represents the first time companies will get explicit Windows services as a feature of a Cisco appliance. Potentially, this is an indication that Server Core represents an opportunity for Windows Server to show up in other places where it wouldn't have before.