Carolee Gearhart, AWS Earnings, More: Catch Up on the Latest Cloud News
We’ve got a short roundup all ready for you, with IBM, Oracle Cloud, Tackle and other companies.
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Former Google Cloud channel chief (and vice president of global SMB sales) Carolee Gearhart has a new job, although not in the technology channel. She has accepted the role of chief revenue officer at Gympass.
Gympass delivers a corporate wellbeing platform, targeting organizations from the Fortune 500 to SMBs. It offers access to gyms, personal trainers, internet-based classes and more. Gympass serves companies including McDonald’s, Red Bull and Activision, and is expanding to reach businesses with as few as 10 employees — an area where Gearhart will especially focus.
“Through innovation, Gympass can help defeat inactivity, and I’m excited to play my part in this journey,” Gearhart said. “SMBs employ nearly half the workforce in the U.S. and I am thrilled to make well-being accessible to more people domestically and around the world.”
Gearhart departed Google Cloud last month. Kevin Ichhpurani now works as head of the Google Cloud channel program.
Public cloud continues to prove it’s a moneymaker.
For starters, Amazon Web Services on Thursday reported $17.78 billion in revenue. That marked almost 40% growth in the fourth quarter of 2021, despite multiple outages in those three months. Year over year, the numbers amount to a 39.5% increase and exceed the $17.37 billion analysts expected.
The day before, Google Cloud showed revenue of $5.5 billion. Notably, the division of Alphabet keeps running on significant operating losses. Those widened in the last quarter to $890 million as Google Cloud executives invest in multiple strategies and initiatives with a long-term eye to profitability.
And, last week, Microsoft said Azure revenue grew 46%. Microsoft doesn’t disclose Azure numbers in dollars.
IBM this week said it’s snapped up Boston-based Sentaca.
Sentaca provides telco consulting. IBM is adding the company to its hybrid cloud consulting business. That’ll give communications service providers and media firms more insight for using multicloud platforms, IBM said.
Sentaca was founded in 2008, helping customers implement digital transformation, next-generation networks and better customer experience.
Oracle says more than 1,000 organizations now use its Cloud Lift Services.
The company debuted Cloud Lift last March. The services deliver technical and engineering resources throughout a migration at no extra cost, and through just one point of contact. Customers can take advantage of performance analysis, application architecture, hands-on migrations and go-live support. Oracle bills the initiative as a way to work alongside customers until cloud deployments go live as production workloads. The company even offers training for end-user employees.
Oracle this week said its Cloud Lift global customers include Ingersoll Rand, Volvo Group, Suramericana SA and National Pharmacies. Partners involved in the services include Accenture, Cognizant, Infosys and Syntax.
Cloud marketplaces are touted as a boon for channel partners but that doesn’t mean they’re always easy to navigate.
This week, software company Tackle launched an initiative to change that. Early-stage ISVs can use Tackle’s new Startup Acceleration Program to list on one of the four major marketplaces — AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and Red Hat. At the same time, Tackle is offering those partners support resources.
“We want to invest in startups and enable them to accelerate their revenue with the clouds,” said John Jahnke, CEO at Tackle. “We know how tricky it can be to navigate the nuances of selling your product on the marketplaces while simultaneously developing a product, recruiting a team and establishing a brand. We created the Startup Acceleration Program so early-stage companies have access to the technology and resources necessary to kick off their cloud go-to-market journey the right way.”
To qualify, ISVs must be early-stage (seed, angel, or Series A), have less than $5 million in revenue, and have fewer than 30 employees, as well as a market-ready SaaS product. The ISV must also meet the cloud provider’s listing requirements.
In another in a spate of deals, managed services provider Lemongrass is buying Wharfedale Technologies.
Lemongrass specializes in SAP-to-cloud migrations; Wharfedale does the same, specifically to Microsoft Azure. Lemongrass recently decided to expand to deliver a multicloud focus. It chose Azure as a main starting point, in large part because of Microsoft’s investment in that brand and for its emphasis on automating SAP.
Buying Wharfedale gives Lemongrass more heft with multicloud, Lemongrass said.
“This deal enhances our engineering and service delivery teams while positioning us to compete with the largest systems integrators in the Azure services market,” said Mike Rosenbloom, Lemongrass CEO.
Wharfedale CEO Ganesh Radhakrishnan is joining Lemongrass, as are the other Wharfedale staff in the United States and India.
In another in a spate of deals, managed services provider Lemongrass is buying Wharfedale Technologies.
Lemongrass specializes in SAP-to-cloud migrations; Wharfedale does the same, specifically to Microsoft Azure. Lemongrass recently decided to expand to deliver a multicloud focus. It chose Azure as a main starting point, in large part because of Microsoft’s investment in that brand and for its emphasis on automating SAP.
Buying Wharfedale gives Lemongrass more heft with multicloud, Lemongrass said.
“This deal enhances our engineering and service delivery teams while positioning us to compete with the largest systems integrators in the Azure services market,” said Mike Rosenbloom, Lemongrass CEO.
Wharfedale CEO Ganesh Radhakrishnan is joining Lemongrass, as are the other Wharfedale staff in the United States and India.
It’s the end of a long week, one where you might have missed some of the more under-the-radar cloud news. OK, some of it isn’t so under the radar — we’re looking at you, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud earnings.
But, speaking of Google Cloud, did you hear that former channel chief Carolee Gearhart has a new job? We’ve got the scoop on that cloud news here. We also go over some announcements from IBM and Oracle Cloud. And there’s some cloud marketplace news from a company called Tackle.
Finally, we’ve got another addition to the recent list of 2022 M&A among managed service providers. Check out more of this week’s cloud news in the slideshow above.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Kelly Teal or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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