‘AWS sat outside our top 50 vendors three years ago - now it's top 10'
Graeme Watt, CEO, Softcat
Where does AWS now sit in your vendor hierarchy, and can you give us an idea of how that's changed?
Since we onboarded AWS as a partner a number of years ago, they have now grown to be a top 10 vendor. In the past couple of years they have risen quite sharply in our list - sitting outside the top 50 just three years ago and then with a sharper move from high-teens into that top 10 this past year. There are two main drivers for that growth: the breadth of the product set that AWS offer to support our customers' hybrid journey; and the growing number of ISVs that provide their products and services in the AWS Marketplace.
Where are you seeing the biggest growth opportunity around AWS right now?
We see opportunity across all of AWS right now. Our customers are looking to develop more workloads in the cloud and also to use public cloud as a complementary technology to their current strategies in a hybrid, multi-cloud way. They are also looking for more flexible methods of transacting with us and the Marketplace offers them a place where they can optimise.
In the past couple of years they have risen quite sharply in our list - sitting outside the top 50 just three years ago and then with a sharper move from high-teens into that top 10 this past year
Name one thing AWS should work on if it is to gain further traction in the channel?
As a vendor that wasn't born in the channel, there are always going to be amendments to how they interact with partners as they become more accustomed to our ways of working and our customers' demands. I think particular focus on how they support us with ongoing customer billing when the customer no longer consumes the services is particularly relevant at the moment. Especially as pressures on our economy continue to squeeze.
"A commitment to not directly approach partners' staff would I think benefit the whole community albeit we haven't experienced this ourselves". Which partner MD said it? See next page for more...
