Distribution will play an “extremely powerful” role in hyperscaler marketplaces, a Westcon-Comstor exec has predicted following its formation of a dedicated AWS Marketplace team.
Canalys predicts that partners will capture half the spending that takes place via hyperscaler marketplaces by 2027.
Leading UK partners including Computacenter, Softcat, Bytes, Trustmarque and Crayon are busy building out plans to attack this new route to market.
AWS Marketplace – the largest and most mature hyperscaler marketplace – moved to embrace distribution last year via the launch of its Designated Seller of Record (DSOR) programme.
It enables ISVs to authorise their chosen distributor to create and manage listings on their most popular SaaS solutions and extend private offers on the ISV’s behalf.
Adam Davison, Senior Director AWS EMEA at Westcon-Comstor, said he believes distribution will play a “significant role” in AWS Marketplace.
Westcon-Comstor now has access to 11 of its ISVs on AWS Marketplace, with CrowdStrike the latest to come on board. The ten others are Z-Scaler, Palo Alto Networks, Infoblox, F5, Juniper, Vectra, Check Point, Cisco, Claroty and Skybox.
“Eight distributors went live with DSOR during the course of last year. We’ve built the largest portfolio out of all those distributors, to my knowledge,” Davison said.
“I believe distribution will play a significant role [in marketplace].
“If you look at the traditional go to market we’re all familiar with, where a vendor has a two-tier distribution strategy, for them to be able to scale in the same way they have traditionally on marketplaces, I genuinely believe they need to embrace – and are already embracing – marketplace via distribution.”
“Masquerading” as the ISV
As AWS Marketplace has matured, it has moved to cut first partners, and then distributors, into the action via its introduction of Channel Partner Private Offers (CPPO) and DSOR, respectively.
The addition of DSOR gives distributors like Westcon-Comstor the ability to “masquerade” as the ISV, Davison explained.
Over a third of the transactions Westcon-Comstor has conducted via AWS Marketplace have been with first-time-transacting partners because it has introduced them to the opportunity, Davision said.
This is thanks to its new 11-strong UK and European team dedicated to helping partners ramp up their marketplace strategies, he said.
Many partners don’t realise that customers can “burn down” up to 25% of their committed AWS cloud spend on third-party software and services procured via AWS Marketplace, Davison added.
Cloud commits – ie, committed long-term spending agreements – rose nearly 30% to $394m across the the three major hyperscalers in Q3 2024, according to analyst Futurum.
“We will go in and train the partners and their sellers on how to look for a marketplace opportunity,” Davison said.
“We can educate partners on how to help their end-user contacts, let’s say in cybersecurity, understand that there’s another budget they could potentially get their hands on for that cybersecurity opportunity – which is the cloud budget.
“If the cloud team has over-budgeted, 25% of it could be used to support the procurement of cybersecurity.”
Westcon-Comstor has also just set up its key AWS integrations to its 3D Lab, which Davison characterised as a “sandpit” for partners and their end-user customers to play with the technology they may go on to buy.
“Powerful” partnership
Despite recent advancements from Microsoft Azure – which launched its Multiparty Private Offer (MPO) programme in the UK last May – Davison said Westcon-Comstor is currently “100% focused on ensuring AWS success”.
“I think the other hyperscalers are still looking at how they embrace distribution,” he said.
Canalys in October branded AWS Marketplace “one of the biggest distributors in EMEA and globally”.
But even though some distributors agree with that characterisation, Davison sees space for distribution in the model.
“I think it depends on what you mean by distributor,” he said, emphasising that AWS Marketplace’s role starts and ends with facilitating the transaction.
“AWS don’t go into partners and educate them on vendor solutions or supply pre-sales technical support. That’s why the partnership between AWS Marketplace and the distributor is extremely powerful.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
