Alibaba Cloud has pledged to invest over $60m to “empower” its partner ecosystem in the next fiscal year.
China’s dominant cloud provider has recently announced global resale and services partnerships with the likes of Crayon and Atos.
Alibaba Cloud claims to work with around 12,000 partners worldwide, including not only resellers and SIs but also ISVs such as Salesforce, Fortinet and IBM.
The “significant investment” has been earmarked for collaborative marketing campaigns, incentive rebate programmes, and capability-building initiatives, Alibaba Cloud said.
“Our partners are the catalysts for customer success, and this significant investment is a testament to our commitment to a shared growth model,” Raymond Ma, Vice President of Global Partners & Alliances, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, stated.
“By equipping our partners with advanced resources, dedicated incentives, and direct access to our cutting-edge AI technologies like our Qwen large language models, we are not just building a channel; together, we are fostering a synergistic ecosystem that will accelerate digital transformation and unlock new possibilities for businesses globally in the AI era.”
According to Canalys, Alibaba Cloud held a 36% share of a mainland Chinese cloud infrastructure services market worth $10.2bn in Q3 of 2024.
Alibaba Cloud in April unveiled a global partnership with software licensing giant Crayon. Organisations in “Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe” rely on Alibaba Cloud’s infrastructure either as their primary cloud or as part of a multi-cloud strategy, Crayon said at the time.
Demonstrating the fine line Microsoft, AWS and Google partners must walk, Crayon said the partnership would ensure its customers “can adopt Alibaba Cloud while maintaining interoperability across cloud platforms”.
Alibaba Cloud today announced that Crayon has expanded its regional distribution capability in Southeast Asia through the partnership.
Atos and Alibaba Cloud have also announced an expanded international reseller partnership, adding to their existing Managed Service Provider pact.
The overall investment is designed to help partners “expand their customer base, enhance their technical expertise, and accelerate the adoption of advanced cloud and AI solutions for businesses globally”, Alibaba Cloud said.
