6 New AWS Partner Launches For Marketplace, VMware And AI

From a new Business Outcomes Xcelerator partner program to increasing incentives for MSPs, here are six new partner launches from AWS that every channel partner needs to know about.

Amazon Web Services has unleashed a slew of new incentives, programs and AWS Marketplace benefits with the goal of streamlining partners’ go-to-market capabilities and drive faster sales.

Some of the most impactful new launches for AWS partners include the company’s new Business Outcomes Xcelerator (BOX) Program and a simplified migration program template that includes the VMware Strategic Partner Incentive.

The Seattle-based cloud leader also invested in new discounts and credits for MSPs to offset tooling costs, a generative AI partner sales course, and a new customer data tracker for partners selling on the AWS Marketplace.

[Related: 10 Huge AWS Exits And Hires From Google, OpenAI And Nvidia]

AWS generated $26.3 billion in revenue during Q2 2024, representing a 19 percent sales increase year over year. AWS is currently the No. 1 cloud provider on a global basis with a 32 percent market share, followed by Microsoft with a 23 percent share, followed by Google Cloud with a 12 percent share.

“We’re continuing to make progress on a number of dimensions, but perhaps none more so than the continued reacceleration in AWS growth,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy last month. “As companies continue to modernize their infrastructure and move to the cloud, while also leveraging new generative AI opportunities, AWS continues to be customers’ top choice.”

CRN takes a deep dive into six of the most important new or enhanced partner programs, incentives and tools that every solution provider needs to know about.

New BOX Partner Program To Drive LOB Sales

AWS recently launched a new Business Outcomes Xcelerator (BOX) Program to assist partners in developing and delivering solutions that address line of business (LOB) buyers’ needs.

The new BOX program includes financial incentives for partners to unlock cash and AWS credits to build product demos, explore customer needs and develop proof-of-concept (POC) solutions.

BOX also includes partner matchmaking events where partners can connect with AWS experts to ideate on customer use cases. Additionally, the new program includes guidance for partners listing in the AWS Marketplace and go-to-market asset creation.

Overall, BOX looks to enable partners across commercial and public sectors with tools, resources, and financial incentives to build, market, and sell outcome-driven solutions in AWS Marketplace.

Simplified Migration Program For VMware Funding

Last month, AWS unveiled a simplified Migration Acceleration Program template in the AWS Partner Central that includes the VMware Strategic Partner Incentive (SPI).

AWS partners can leverage the MAP template to drive more VMware customer migration opportunities with a simple approval workflow and access to SPIs.

The new template accelerates VMware opportunities by providing better speed to market with fewer AWS approval stages.

The AWS Partner Funding Portal automatically calculates the eligible VMware SPI incentive and creates associated claim milestones. Now, partners can skip navigating to a separate Partner Initiative Funding benefit and directly request the VMware SPI as part of the standard template.

New Discounts, Workshops And Access For MSPs

AWS recently announced new benefits for AWS managed services partners (MSPs) including self-serve technical enablement, workshops with AWS experts, as well as discounts and credits to offset tooling costs.

AWS MSP Specialization Partners receive discounts and extended free trials to offset select third-party tooling costs. Additionally, MSP partners receive marketing development fund credits to offset the cost of AWS’ Skill Builder online learning center.

The cloud giant also launched managed services build workshops to help MSPs accelerate business planning, develop go-to-market ideas, and drive better alignment with AWS sellers.

To help MSPs enhance their technical capabilities, AWS has extended its PartnerEquip program to MSP Specialization Partners, which provides early access to feature releases and industry specific sessions from technical experts.

Finally, AWS launched a new Managed Services Build Essentials kit for partners that includes information on best practices, playbooks and training resources now available in AWS Partner Central.

AWS Simplifies Services Partner Requirements

The company updated AWS’ Services Partner Tier requirements to drive operational efficiencies and streamline progression to achieve Tiers faster.

As of July 10, public references and customer satisfaction responses (CSAT) are no longer needed to maintain or upgrade from Select to Advanced and Premier tier status.

AWS said it’s shifting the company’s focus from public references to case studies that have continued to demonstrate more value for both our customers and AWS partners.

The goal is to accelerate and better support partners total time to market. Partners with a services business model can enroll in the Services Path in AWS Partner Central.

Generative AI Sales Course

This month, AWS launched its new generative AI sales course to help partners better sell GenAI solutions.

The GenAI sales course is laser-focused on teaching partners not just what to sell, but how to sell and deliver GenAI at scale across their entire sales organization.

The two-hour course and its supplemental materials help partners translate service knowledge into value-driving proof-of-concepts (POCs) and scalable deployments. Each module incorporates partner feedback on what their sellers need, like scoping questions to align data outputs with stakeholder priorities, and evaluating deployment models’ tradeoffs.

AWS provides information on the cost implications and trade-offs associated with each AI deployment method including custom trained AI models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and fine-tuning generative AI applications.

Partners can enroll in the AWS partner generative AI sales course on AWS Skillbuilder.

New AWS Marketplace Data Tracker For Partners

AWS helped partners sell on the AWS Marketplace by launching its Agreements data feed for the Seller Delivery Data Feed Services (SDDS).

This Agreements data feed provides Marketplace sellers the ability to programmatically create granular data from the Seller Insights dashboards to track their customers’ subscriptions, revenue and renewals.

Before this launch, Marketplace sellers had to rely on email notifications or the AWS’ Marketplace Agreements API to collect agreement status and estimated value. Now, partner sellers can leverage Agreements and renewals dashboard to track and analyze key aspects of their customer agreements.

The new AWS Agreements enables sellers to identify customer agreements at different stages of the lifecycle allowing partners to easy categorization of AWS Marketplace sales at a glance. Additionally, the Agreements and renewals Insights dashboard now includes an enhanced view of Marketplace agreements for SaaS, server and professional services products, such as estimated agreement value and agreement status.