AWS Talks Changes to Partner Paths, Marketplace

AMAZON re:INVENT — Amazon Web Services on Monday debuted changes to Partner Paths and AWS Marketplace.

For starters, the world’s largest public cloud provider has made good on outgoing channel chief Doug Yeum’s desire to bring the transformations enabled by the ISV Partner Path program to other types of partners. This past April, Yeum told Channel Futures that was one of his goals. Partner Paths provide a “curated” journey comprising resources, benefits and programs for partners. Now, as Yeum leaves, it looks like mission accomplished.

That’s because, on Jan. 28, 2022, Partner Paths expand from just ISVs to software, hardware, training, distribution and services. (ISV Partner Path, incidentally, now folds into Software Path.) Partners offering consulting, professional, managed and/or value-added resale services all can enroll in one or more Partner Path programs. Participants must be part of the Amazon Partner Network. They get access to the partner portal, training discounts, business- and technical-enablement content, and more. Importantly, Partner Paths also eliminate any previous tier requirements to validate software and hardware offerings with AWS.

More Happening on AWS Marketplace

Next, Stephen Orban, general manager, AWS Marketplace and Control Services, announced enhancements to that platform.

AWS’ Stephen Orban

First, AWS has bulked up the AWS Data Exchange with AWS Data Exchange for Amazon Redshift. That lets users find and query data from dozens of providers directly from Redshift without setting up a pipeline, Orban told Channel Futures earlier in November. Users “wanted the ability to query only data they needed without having to move files every time there’s an update,” Orban said. AWS first launched Data Exchange in 2019.

AWS also debuted Data Exchange for APIs, “which I think is super special for how magical this could be,” Orban said.

This platform removes the need to do different API integrations.

“Now you call third-party APIs the same way you call any other AWS service,” Orban said. “It lets data providers reach builders.”

Finally, AWS will rebrand AWS Marketplace for Containers to AWS Marketplace for Containers Anywhere. That way, customers can find, deploy and govern dozens of new containers onto the Kubernetes platforms of their choice, Orban said.

“We’re super excited with the momentum that we have and we’re really hitting our stride with a number of different partners,” Orban said. “We’re not just giving them more ways to reach more customers but also [giving them more] co-sell motions.”

AWS has teamed with a variety of vendors (which it considers partners but that Channel Futures readers work with as managed service providers, value-added resellers, consultants and so on) to enable and support the AWS Marketplace upgrades.

Marketplaces Gaining Traction

AWS Marketplace stands out as the first large-scale cloud marketplace in the industry; it debuted in April 2012.

Indeed, online marketplaces have come into their own over the last 10 years and continue to supplant the traditional resale model. They have proven a simple, affordable way for channel partners to procure and support platforms for their clients — and, at the same time, to build that much-discussed, coveted recurring revenue base.

Industry-wide, reliance on online marketplaces has grown faster than experts expected.

Forrester’s Jay McBain

“We had predicted 17% of the channel’s business, the vendor’s business, would go to the marketplace by 2023,” Jay McBain, principal analyst of channel partnerships and alliances at Forrester, told Channel Futures earlier this year. However, he added, “we’re starting to think now that it’s going to happen this year.”