__p IBM India and Cisco will jointly serve their customers in India in the deployment of networking solutions including joint marketing and promotion activities, training and competency centers.p____p To highlight their plans, both the vendors organized four seminars in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata last month.p____p This initiative is a part of the global alliance formed between IBM and Cisco in 1999, which comprised of a $2-bn technology agreement, a strategic relationship with IBM Global Services and the acquisition by Cisco of portions of IBM�s networking intellectual property.p____p The partnership will deliver a combination of networking solutions, technologies and services to businesses and service providers worldwide.p____p Govindan Sridharan, country executive, IBM Global Services, said, “The Internet is driving the network industry�s growth at a phenomenal rate. Networks will become more mission critical and there will be greater need for higher reliability, availability and security.”p____p IBM Global Services India has trained its engineers in Cisco technologies and out-fitting its competency centers here with Cisco equipment. Similarly, Cisco has ramped up the training of its internal staff in SNA-to-IP technologies.p____p The seminars delved into pertinent issues such as the relevance of networking technology in enabling profitable solutions for businesses where winning customer confidence and trust is of primary importance.p__