AWS claims $10bn run-rate milestone is just the beginning
AWS' UK boss Gavin Jackson hails 'tremendous momentum' in partners' business and claims increasing accreditation investment can be lucrative
Amazon Web Services' (AWS) UK boss has said partners can make 11 times more revenue if they invest in more than four AWS certifications, adding that plugging the industry's skills gap will help propel the company's momentum.
In Amazon's recent Q1 results, it announced that AWS revenue rocketed 64 per cent annually to $2.6bn (£1.8bn), accounting for almost nine per cent of Amazon's overall sales. This, it claimed at the time, makes the company a $10bn run-rate business.
AWS' UK managing director Gavin Jackson told CRN that this milestone is significant.
"Getting to $10bn at 10 years old is quite a validation of our business model," he said. "To put that into perspective, because it is quite a startling figure, it took Microsoft 22 years to get to $10bn and it took Oracle 23 years. So it really is a great validation, we feel, for the value proposition we have and the seismic shift in the market overall."
Jackson (pictured) claims AWS has boosted the number of partners it works with by 50 per cent over the past 12 months. The company does not disclose the exact number of partners with which it works because it changes so regularly, Jackson said, but he did say the figure is in the "tens of thousands".
Despite its already rapid growth in terms of both the size of its channel and its sales, Jackson said a more rapid acceleration could be on the cards if its partners became more skilled.
"We and our partners are aligned on this one in that if we continue to serve customers in the way they want to be served, there's a great deal more speed which can be added to the market," he said.
"We're $10bn into a $3tn total addressable market, in our view. So it's still very, very early. There's a huge global deficit of skills in the market right now and that's something partners are really leaning into to get AWS certifications.
"If you're a Premier partner on AWS, and you've got more than four AWS certifications, then you have 11 times more revenue return than people who don't have that. The demand is there and the demand for the skills these partners bring is significant. For an 11x return, it is an investment partners are willing to make."
On Amazon's Q1 results investor call, the company admitted its margins are "bumpy", and will remain so in the near future.
Jackson said that partners can get around this issue by adding their own value to the AWS offering.
"Partners are keen to provide the value that we don't," he said. "What we're providing is a shift in thinking and a completely new operating model for customers. You have to have the scale platform, and that's what we provide, and the innovation goes into the platform. Then you need a wealth of partners to create value into that. The value for partners comes from building the next software on it.
"Where the money is, and where the juice is, if you will, for partners, is the value you add to the platform. It's the same as the Amazon retail business - it's a very high-volume, low-margin business where the ones that make the higher margins are the third-party sellers. It's the same thing here. We provide the utility for the third parties to create that business value on top."