Ruba Borno Touts Security Certifications, Other Partner Updates on AWS re:Invent Stage

AWS RE:INVENT — Ruba Borno hit the Amazon Web Services stage to talk updates for partners who build on and sell the cloud computing provider’s technologies.

First up, Borno announced four new certifications, bringing the total to 123.

Calling security “fundamental to everything you do, to everything we do,” Borno introduced the new competencies. They are:

Ruba Borno Talks AWS Marketplace

Citing 2023 Forrester Consulting research that shows partners who sell through AWS Marketplace reap 234% return on investment, Borno then unveiled some key updates.

First, starting in January, all ISV Accelerate partners, including eligible startups, will be able to take advantage of AWS’ SaaS co-sell benefits.

Next, partners now may put AWS Marketplace “Buy with AWS” branding and capabilities on their own websites.

“This way, customers can access AWS Marketplace from any partner's website,” Borno said. “Partners can now provide customers with co-branded search discovery and a procurement experience directly from their websites. From there, customers can request demos, get custom pricing, and … [get] central billing and user management features.”

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All transactions connect directly to the customer’s own AWS account as well. Borno noted that distributor Ingram Micro already has launched its “Buy With AWS” storefront, as one example.

Finally, AWS Marketplace partners doing private offers now can get paid in four currencies they’ve been requesting for some time: the euro, yen, pound and Australian dollars, Borno said. This eliminates foreign exchange risk, she said, and lets partners receive payments in their local bank accounts.

More from Ruba Borno: Incentives, ‘Think Bigger with Our Customers’

Borno further noted that AWS’ incentives for strategic workloads such as SAP and VMware now include the new AWS-native service, Amazon Elastic VMware service. That’s the platform that lets VMware customers run VMware Cloud Foundation within their Amazon Virtual Private Clouds.

And what does AWS ask of its partners in return for all of these improvements?

“Think bigger with our customers, because they want to modernize, and they need your help,” Borno said.

AWS CEO Matt Garman Chats with Ruba Borno

AWS CEO Matt Garman made a surprise appearance to conduct a fireside-type chat with Borno. The discussion mostly revolved around announcements Garman made on Tuesday and his views on ISV partnerships — which, from the Channel Futures reader perspective, are vendors (think Salesforce, Snowflake, ServiceNow and the like).

Related:AWS CEO at re:Invent: Garman Touts AI Updates, Jassy Talks Nova

AWS' Ruba Borno and Matt Garman at AWS re:Invent 2024, Las Vegas, Dec. 4. Courtesy: AWS

In what might be most relevant to AWS managed service providers and other more channel-centric partners, Garman sees growth opportunity in global regions including the Middle East, Malaysia and Mexico. Garman also mentioned demand for data sovereignty in geographies including Europe.

“I think the European sovereign cloud is a great opportunity for us to partner … to figure out how to jointly help our customers use our products, no matter where they are in the world,” Garman said, adding, “It's a really fantastic time for us to go grow our businesses together.”

Ruba Borno Briefly Addresses SMB Demographic

Early this year, AWS launched its SMB competency, targeting − at last, arguably − a sector the cloud provider historically has overlooked. Since that introduction, the partners who have earned the SMB certification have grown by 35 percentage points, Borno said.

“It is great to see the value they're delivering to SMB customers, because that value can transform entire industries,” Borno said.

Borno Unveils Partner Connections

AWS long has discussed the value of partners working together, while noting that the involvement of multiple parties can lead to communication breakdown and lack of transparency. To solve those problems, Borno on Dec. 4 took the wraps off Partner Connections. In preview, this feature in AWS Partner Central or a partner’s integrated CRM provides a unified co-sell experience, Borno said.

Related:AWS’ Ruba Borno Palestine Necklace Ignites Ugly Backlash

“[P]artners can co-sell joint solutions, accelerate deals and expand their reach together,” Borno said. “We're investing in simplifying multiparty deals because we know that it takes complexity to solve difficult problems.”

re:Invent Partner Keynote

Much of Borno’s keynote stage time was taken up by partner and end user testimonials. Indeed, compared to the usual flood of announcements coming out of AWS re:Invent for partners, this year’s channel focus seemed subdued — and largely constituted reviews of news released throughout 2024. It also came of interest that Borno did not touch on partner possibilities that Amazon Nova, the new gen AI model Garman discussed on Dec. 3, might bring about.

For its part, cloud services provider Innovative Solutions already has ramped up its PR campaign to say it’s the first AWS partner to offer access to Nova. Innovative Solutions has built its own platform, Tailwinds, that helps customers implement gen AI; it has made Nova models available through that platform.

“With the enhancements brought to market by Amazon Nova, companies will be able to further accelerate their AI initiatives and drive more impactful results,” said Justin Copie, CEO of Innovative Solutions.

Innovative Solutions’ gen AI platform, Tailwinds, supports Amazon Nova through its Amazon Bedrock integration. As such, the cloud service provider says end users may:

Built on Bedrock, Nova can process text, images and video as prompts.

Borno’s keynote at AWS’ annual event came after public backlash over a pro-Palestine piece of jewelry she wore in a recent video promoting re:Invent (AWS has since pulled that video).