Soaring annual growth rates of close to 40 per cent may mean AWS still has the feel of a youthful start-up.
But, incredibly, the public cloud giant turns 20 this month, at least going by the date Amazon debuted the platform as a developer tool (the public launch didn't come until 2006).
In recognition of this milestone, we asked six partner leaders about where AWS stands in their business today and how they think the public cloud giant can steal marketshare from more channel-hardened competitors such as Microsoft Azure.
Underlining its burgeoning channel footprint, AWS was picked as a top-five vendor by more respondents in the recent CRN Vendor Report than all bar five vendors (Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, HPE and HP), in the process bagging one of the highest average scores for Technology Leadership.
But although AWS now boasts a $75bn-revenue runrate, and the adoption of public cloud is increasingly seen as a case of 'how, not why', some of the partner bosses quoted below felt that AWS has scope to up its game in areas such as rebates, direct-vs-channel conflict and managed services.
‘AWS sat outside our top 50 vendors three years ago - now it's top 10'. See next page for Softcat CEO Graeme Watt's views on AWS...
