New IBM Cloud Marketplace Ties Into Partner Ecosystem

The IBM Cloud strategy evolved again this week. Big Blue introduced a new cloud marketplace that will pull together its own cloud services, as well as those being offered by its global ecosystem of partners. The new cloud marketplace is meant to provide an easy way for developers, IT managers and business leaders to learn about, try and buy software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.

Of course, it also means another important feather in IBM’s cloud cap, giving customers and partners a critical offering that will help the century-old company compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other key cloud players. It also follows on IBM’s promise to invest another $1 billion in its rapidly growing cloud services offerings, which have been undergoing a major evolution over the last several months.

“Most cloud marketplaces are tied to one specific product offering. If you don’t use the particular service for which the marketplace was built—even if you’re a customer of other products by the same company, that marketplace is irrelevant for you,” said Jim Franklin, CEO of SendGrid, in a prepared statement. “But the IBM Cloud marketplace will be available to all IBM and non-IBM customers. Whether you’re using BlueMix, or SoftLayer, or another IBM product, the IBM marketplace will be there to serve you. As a vendor, being able to reach all IBM customers from one place is very exciting.”

A cloud marketplace was one of the things IBM’s strategy was missing, but with it, the company should be able to play a bigger role in the growing cloud market. And it puts it on a more even foothold against AWS. The two companies have a strong rivalry that only seems to grow as IBM invests more into its cloud strategy and goes after the same cloud deals as its top competitor.