...here are the type of votes contestants would love to receive.   We recently saw two items that speak well on the progress of UCS against the most important yardsticks:  how IT professionals and our partners rate Cisco as a computing systems vendor.

First up is CRN's Annual Report Card.   This is where IT solution providers rate vendors in categories of product innovation, support and partnership.   For Midrange Servers, Cisco took top marks:

Note the margin.  A blowout worthy of Dickie V superlatives.  We have CRN's commentary on the Midrange category posted here and you can doubleclick into a detailed scores breakout on their Report Cards page.

Next up:  TheInfoPro Servers and Virtualization Study.  This is a recurring report from 451 Research, now in it's 12^thiteration, which brings together interview feedback from IT professionals.   You have to love a good old 2