AWS’ Ruba Borno On Gen AI, Other Cloud Computing Advancements

Editor's Note: Channel Futures conducted this interview and wrote the article prior to learning about the controversy over Ruba Borno wearing a necklace in support of Palestine in a corporate video.

It has been a while since Channel Futures sat down with Amazon Web Services’ Ruba Borno, the alliances head whose title recently changed to vice president of AWS global specialists and partners. We got the chance this month as the cloud computing provider starts promoting the latest installment of re:Invent, its huge annual gathering in Las Vegas. 

Yes, like every cloud computing company these days, AWS has its sights firmly pinned on the prospects around generative AI. But the world’s largest public cloud computing vendor has more to talk about, too, which probably comes as a breath of fresh air for cloud computing partners burned out on the all-gen AI hype. Borno gets it. Partners and customers are ready to see real-life results from the buzz.

So, apart from gen AI, what else is happening on the partner front at AWS? The short answer: quite a bit. There’s momentum on the partner-to-partner co-opetition effort, called Box. There’s momentum in the wake of Broadcom’s decision to bar AWS and its partners from selling VMware Cloud on AWS. And Borno also shares some thoughts on AWS’ big announcement with Oracle last month. From there, she talks AWS Marketplace and the first-ever Startup Partner Summit.

Related:AWS’ Ruba Borno Palestine Necklace Ignites Ugly Backlash

Channel Futures: Let’s talk about gen AI from a more sophisticated perspective, beyond the buzz. I think readers are ready to move past the hype.

Ruba Borno: Spot on. … It's not just readers -- it's customers and partners. They’re all wanting to talk about the impact. … Gone are the days of, ‘Let's have 100 proofs of concept going on that are sucking up our time and resources.’ Instead, let's talk about how this is going to impact our business, and that's really what we've been focused on. 

I think the last time we spoke … was right after we launched the generative AI competency. And we launched that because customers wanted to know who should they work with that actually has had customer impact. … [T]hat’s the competency that we're really excited about continuing to invest in, and the commitment our partners have made, both on the systems integrators and consulting partners, as well as the ISV partners who are part of the competency talk who are able to demonstrate top-line and bottom line impact on solutions that they've built together.

…The ‘what can I do?’ is probably an infinite landscape, which is why we've invested in making sure that the solutions that we've seen work with our customers and our partners are available on the AWS Marketplace, are available on the Solutions Library for customers to go through. … [C]ustomers don't just want to hear about the hype. They want to hear about the impact, and that's why we've invested in the competency and the AWS Marketplace and Solutions Library.

Related:Who Is Ruba Borno? Get to Know AWS’ New Global Channel Chief

We have more gen AI and non-gen AI cloud computing partner updates from AWS as we continue our Q&A with Borno in the slideshow above.

This conversation has been edited for length.