At a media question and answer session with John Chambers (pictured) yesterday, I've raised the issue of Cisco's "channel" strategy following the lawsuit of silver-partner Infra-Comm, covered by ChannelWeb here and more recently here.

For Cisco's CEO, the numbers will tell the whole story. Although he did not sound apologetic at all, pointing to Cisco's satisfaction ratings amongst its business partners, "the best in the [networking] industry" as well as their loyalty... highest in 17-18 years, he did concede that all is not perfect. Finally, Chambers reminded us all that "he" was the one who took Cisco's direct business to the channel!