IBM Alliance Partners AWS, SAP Grab Spotlight at Think Conference
IBM’s leaders share why IBM Partner Plus is such a major change for Big Blue.
May 12, 2023
![IBM Alliance Partners at IBM Think 2023 IBM Alliance Partners at IBM Think 2023](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt57269c1863d9a8f5/6523fa769e569b1ab676606f/Lobby-crowd-shot.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Among the 4,000 attendees at IBM Think 2023, 1,000 were partners. On the eve of Partner Plus Day, partners had a chance to mingle at a cocktail reception.
Kate Woolley, general manager of IBM’s ecosystem, gave brief remarks at the opening reception welcoming partners. During the opening session at IBM Partner Plus Day, Woolley shared the following:
· Since October, IBM has tracked 60,000 enrollments in courses to become certified for its new skilling and badging requirements.
· Starting July 1, IBM Technology Lifecycle Services (TLS) will be integrated into the IBM Partner Plus program. “This means you can earn incentives when selling IBM Systems expert care at time of hardware sale,” Woolley said.
· Woolley announced the launch of the IBM Partner Plus Awards. IBM will have a call for entries in September with winners to be announced at next year’s Think conference.
Ruba Borno, VP of worldwide channels and alliances at AWS, discussed the release of IBM Software on the AWS Marketplace with Kate Woolley, general manager of IBM’s ecosystem during the opening session of IBM Partner Plus Day.
“We think this is a great way for partners to be able to get the IBM products that customers need in the hands of the customers as quickly as possible,” Bomo said. “For us having AWS and IBM and our partners come together to [help] our clients [with] complex transformations is really where we think there’s going to be outsized value.”
Addressing partners on IBM Partner Plus Day, Krisha said, “Artificial intelligence is going to unlock $16 trillion of productivity and [partners] are the ones who are going to make that come to life.”
Joining Krishna on stage during his 45-minute talk was CDW chief commercial and operating officer Christina Corely.
Corely shared her enthusiasm for the new IBM Partner Plus program.
“We’re really excited about the focus on skills and enablement and how IBM is sharing your assets on our behalf so that we can leverage your great training,” she said.
Asked by Corely about the impact of the economic downturn on demand for IT, Krisha said: “For most of our clients, the only way they can scale, the only way they can look at taking costs out, is through technology,” he said. “That means technology is no longer a level cost center; it is the thing that lets our clients succeed. The only way to tackle inflation for our clients is if they can make their existing people and assets more productive.”
No. 1 in AI and Hybrid Cloud
Thomas noted that three years ago, IBM determined it wanted to lead in hybrid cloud and AI.
“Both of those are platform type investments,” he said. “Without an ecosystem, you don’t have a platform. And so, by definition, ecosystem went from something that was really important to something that is existential for IBM for the next couple of decades.”
Ecosystem Overhaul
To build a robust ecosystem, Thomas said IBM was determined that it required significant overhaul.
“The most significant thing IBM did in January was to increase sales resources supporting partners by 40%. I’ve been with IBM for 23 years; we’ve never done anything even close to this in terms of a shift of resource,” he said. “This is a pretty dramatic shift. Actions mean a lot more than words. And hopefully people are starting to see that now.”
New Partners
Since the launch of IBM Partner Plus in January, IBM has recruited 2,000 new partners. Thomas urged longtime partners to embrace this change. Understanding that some partners might believe that IBM is throwing more competition into the ecosystem, Thomas said: “The more people and companies participating in the ecosystem of IBM, it’s going to be better for everybody; the whole pie is going to get a lot bigger. I do think it’s good for you. Because if we double the revenue of IBM, there’s, by definition, two times at least as much opportunity for each of you individually, and probably more.”
Thomas underscored that new partners have a completely different point of view on how to get to market. Noting that roughly 80% plus of IBM’s business is driven through the CIO office, Thomas said: “That’s probably not the future of how technology gets acquired. It’s a part of it, but it’s probably not the soul path. And I think new partners often bring a new lens to thinking about how you improve different parts of the organization.”
Focus On Adding ISVs
About a year ago, IBM determined that the best way to accelerate its work with ISVs was to focus on OpenShift, “because we believe every software company is going to eventually be hybrid cloud and multicloud [and] we think [Red Hat] OpenShift is a great answer for that,” Thomas said.
Other ways to appeal to ISVs are though vertical clouds like IBM Financial Services Cloud, which provides a way to deploy for regulated environments, and embedded AI, like the SAP alliance.
Steve Jaeger, director of SAP’s AI strategy, joined Thomas on stage during his session to explain why SAP decided to embed Watson into all of its applications, and its new digital assistant.
“With the advanced natural language processing that Watson brings to the table, we’re able to create a level user scale in a way that will be transformative to the user experience,” he said. “That means they can look for business critical information, interactively, engage with their favorite SAP app, and most importantly, keep the business context. Now, if you take all of this together, we’re not only able to speed up, but even automate some mundane and common tasks for users and ultimately improve employee efficiency.”
Steve Jaeger, director of SAP’s AI strategy, joined Thomas on stage during his session to explain why SAP decided to embed Watson into all of its applications, and its new digital assistant.
“With the advanced natural language processing that Watson brings to the table, we’re able to create a level user scale in a way that will be transformative to the user experience,” he said. “That means they can look for business critical information, interactively, engage with their favorite SAP app, and most importantly, keep the business context. Now, if you take all of this together, we’re not only able to speed up, but even automate some mundane and common tasks for users and ultimately improve employee efficiency.”
IBM alliance partners AWS and SAP were in the spotlight during this week’s IBM Think conference. Big Blue executives emphasized that partners and customers can now procure IBM software through the AWS Marketplace, while SAP announced that it is embedding IBM’s Watson AI technology into its applications.
AWS and SAP are among the seven most strategic IBM alliance partners. The others are Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, Samsung and Cisco, said IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna. However, IBM showcased its alliances with AWS and SAP during the main sessions at IBM Partner Plus Day and Think in Orlando.
In advance of this week’s conference, SAP announced that it will embed IBM’s Watson technology into its various applications. Among them are SAP Start, a digital assistant designed to work with SAP’s cloud solutions, including those integrated with SAP S/4 HANA Cloud.
IBM’s Arvind Krishna
“This was the first time that SAP embedded AI from somebody else, but we were really happy they picked the Watson platform,” Krishna said.
IBM chief commercial officer Rob Thomas called it “one of the biggest announcements we’ve done in maybe five years.”
The move raised the question if SAP is replacing its Leonardo “digital innovation system” launched in 2017. An SAP spokesperson said Watson is not replacing Leonardo, though SAP hasn’t emphasized the machine learning offering in recent years.
See the slideshow above for more insights from Think 2023 and IBM Partner Plus Day.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Jeffrey Schwartz or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
Read more about:
VARs/SIsAbout the Author(s)
You May Also Like