Amazon pumps support into the AWS partners

Amazon is continuing to pump up its partner channel by adding new benefits and support for them, and a new membership tier to be known as the Premier Consulting Partners.

The AWS Marketplace has now grown to more than 1,100 different software products that are pre-configured for the AWS Cloud, and the company is finding that customers are increasingly asking for partner solutions in areas such as value-added software, established business applications, developer tools, and consulting expertise to help them deploy and manage workloads on the AWS cloud. The AWS Partner Network (APN) has grown to more than 8,000 technology and consulting partners worldwide. The number of products available in the AWS Marketplace has increased 71 percent, and hours of usage of AWS Marketplace products has increased by more than 700 percent.

“Our partners are critical to helping customers run their applications on AWS,” said Terry Wise, Director, Worldwide Partner Ecosystem, AWS, “and we will continue to invest in delivering the programs, tools and training to help our partners grow their cloud businesses, differentiate their offerings, and drive success for our joint customers.”

AWS grants APN Competencies to Consulting Partners which have attained proficiency in a specific specialisation or use case. The company has this week introduced three new Competencies for partners including Microsoft Exchange, SAP, and Oracle applications on the AWS cloud. It has also announced plans to introduce and expand new APN programs and initiatives in 2014, including the APN Advanced Channel Programthat gives them access to expanded technical support and content, the APN SaaS Accelerate Program for specialised technical SaaS support content, APN Partner Leadsfor providing relevant sales leads, and APN Business Development Training Seriesfor partner training and information on business development,  

The new AWS Premier Consulting Partner designation highlights the top APN Consulting Partners globally. These are the ones that have distinguished themselves by investing significantly in their AWS practice, growing their AWS business, providing exceptional customer service and helping a large number of customers run their applications on AWS. The 2013-2014 Premier Consulting Partners include: 2nd Watch, Accenture, Aquilent, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bulletproof Networks, Capgemini, Cloudnexa, Cloudpack, Cloudreach, Cognizant, Control Group, Datapipe, Dedalus, Infosys, Nomura Research Institute (NRI), Razorfish, Slalom Consulting, Smart421, Smartronix, smartShift Tech Inc., Storm Reply and Wipro.