Where available, multi-year agreements can provide significant benefits to Cisco customers and partners.

Benefits to partners include:

• Increased gross margins and cash flow
• Decreased sales administration costs
• Increased renewal rates

Benefits to customers include:

• Decreased support costs
• Opportunity to lock in a fixed price over a longer period of time, an opportunity provided by Cisco evaluating maintenance pricing at least twice a year
• Ability to finance at a fixed cost with leasing options, where available