AWS partners cite boost from GenAI, online selling updates
The ability to build industry offerings on Amazon Nova, easier online selling and accelerated application modernization intrigued partners at AWS re:Invent 2024.
Partners attending AWS' annual cloud conference cited the ability to build on the company's generative AI offerings, simplified online selling and a push to modernize customers' systems as some of the top channel developments.
AWS re:Invent 2024, which took place Dec. 2-6 in Las Vegas, offered IT service providers an update on the cloud vendor's product and partner ecosystem strategy. It also offered a platform for partners to feature their own intellectual property. More than 400 partners participated in the event's expo, which provides exhibit space for products and services.
Overall, AWS has more than 140,000 partners, which include professional services firms, MSPs and resellers as well as SaaS companies.
AWS partners build on Amazon Nova
Generative AI was, unsurprisingly, a key theme at re:Invent. In one development, AWS unveiled Amazon Nova, a new line of foundation models that customers access through Amazon Bedrock, the company's GenAI and machine learning platform.
Partners aim to build on the latest AI offering. PwC last week kicked off a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS under which the companies will build industry-specific applications using Amazon Nova and other models. Patrick Pugh, PwC's global alliance and ecosystem leader, said the industry focus will help transition AI from concept to practical applications.
"It's an industry-driven approach that will help our different clients in how they transform the ways they work," he said.
PwC works with AWS across several industries, including healthcare and life sciences, media and entertainment, financial services and insurance, according to Pugh.
Innovation Solutions, a cloud services provider based in Rochester, N.Y., is also incorporating Amazon Nova. Its new Tailwinds tool, which the company said speeds up the task of creating GenAI applications, provides access to the AWS family of models. Tailwinds, which was launched at re:Invent, includes use-case templates that let businesses deploy AI applications geared to specific industries. Those sectors include healthcare, financial services and manufacturing, according to the company.
Innovative Solutions CEO Justin Copie said AWS is working with partners to expand AI deployments by customers.
"AWS has made a significant effort to help partners accelerate customers' GenAI journeys beyond what they would consider proof of concept," Copie said.
AWS Marketplace tweaks online channel sales
AWS also took steps to make it easier for partners to transact online sales. The company unveiled Buy with AWS, which lets customers purchase offerings available on AWS Marketplace from partner sites. Previously, a customer might see a cloud service promoted on a partner's site, but would need to buy it through AWS' digital store.
In addition, AWS previewed a feature called Partner Connections, which lets partners jointly develop and co-sell integrated offerings to customers. Partner Connections is built on AWS Marketplace and AWS Partner Central, a self-service portal through which partners manage their relationship with AWS.
Copie said AWS has made it easier for partners such as systems integrators and ISVs to share their product and service listings in the marketplace to create bundled offerings for customers. He said the process of building joint offerings once took weeks.
"The time to collaborate has been dramatically accelerated," Copie said. "I have never seen a bigger push from AWS to help partners and help customers maximize the value of the AWS Marketplace."
AWS Marketplace has become increasingly important for channel partners since the company opened it for professional services sales in 2020 -- the online market was originally for software sellers.
Skipping lift-and-shift migration
In another thrust, AWS aims to speed up application modernization. Ruba Borno, vice president of AWS specialists and partners, pointed to Amazon Q Developer: Transform as a modernization tool for partners. The new offering, available in preview mode, targets mainframe, .Net and VMware workloads. The VMware tool, for example, transforms VMware workloads to run natively on AWS.
"Migration is not enough," Borno said during her partner keynote address at re:Invent. "Customers need modernization of those legacy applications and those workloads."
Copie said AWS' approach revises the usual steps of public cloud adoption: migrating a customer's on-premises environment to the cloud and then modernizing applications going forward. The new push, he said, skips the lift-and-shift migration and moves directly to modernization -- redeveloping or refactoring applications on AWS.
Faster modernization will help AWS combat competitive threats from the other hyperscalers, Copie noted.
John Moore is a writer for TechTarget Editorial covering the CIO role, economic trends and the IT services industry.
