At an event held last week in Rivonia, Cisco Systems recognized the achievements of four of its local partners.

According to Cisco channel manager, George Atrash, this follows several selection processes, where partners were selected first from the Africa region, followed by the Middle East and Africa combined, and, finally, in the global awards ceremony held last year in Vancouver.

Last week"s presentation was held in recognition of Cisco"s top local partners in the Middle East and African regions.

Steve Midgely, commercial business and channel operations director for Cisco MEA, says that Africa saw some very positive growth for Cisco.

"Q3 last year was by far our biggest quarter in SA," he says, adding that the majority of Cisco"s top partners saw "high double-digit growth figures" last year.

Westcon subsidiary, Comstor, won the award for SA"s top Cisco distributor, while Telkom won the award for top service provider, and Business Connexion garnered the award for top services partner.

Dimension Data scooped two awards, the first being as Cisco"s top IP communications partner, and the second (less of a surprise) for top gold partner.

The networking vendor painted a positive picture of the local networking and communications market, saying that the relatively strong rand, stable interest rates and strong GDP are factors that will contribute to continual growth in the local ICT market.