IBM and AWS forge global alliance, streamlining access to AI and hybrid cloud solutions

IBM has announced the expansion of its software portfolio to 92 countries in AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors (ISVs). Previously, the digital catalog was available in just five countries.

This strategic alliance allows businesses in these countries access to IBM’s software products, including data technologies and AI, directly through the AWS Marketplace, IBM said in a statement.

“The expansion beyond Denmark, France, Germany, United Kingdom and United States, where the software is currently available, will help make procurement easier for clients, streamline purchasing and create new efficiencies, while allowing them to use their AWS committed spend for IBM software purchases,” the statement added.

“By expanding the availability of our software portfolio in AWS Marketplace, organizations around the world will have greater access to a streamlined way to procure many IBM AI and hybrid cloud offerings to help propel their business forward,” Nick Otto, Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at IBM, said in the statement. “Our collaboration with AWS is a prime example of how we’re working with other companies to meet the needs of clients, making it as easy as possible for them to do business with IBM and accelerate their transformation journeys.”

Industry analysts view this collaboration as a significant development in the cloud software industry.

“Since AWS is the cloud infra leader with thousands of enterprises and many of them overlap with IBM and RedHat using their SaaS solutions. Strong synergies are coming out of this partnership,” said Neil Shah, VP for research, and partner at Counterpoint Research. “IBM’s highly-capable Watson AI platform and its RedHat open solutions, combined with AWS Cloud and Amazon Bedrock and IBM Consulting form a solid offering for enterprises. Further, it also offers some monetization and potential cross-selling opportunities for AWS to the IBM and RedHat clients.”

“This will increase competition with some of the select SaaS vendors on the AWS platform who offer similar offerings,” said Rajiv Ranjan, associate research director at IDC. “In particular, it will make it easier for IBM software and IBM Watson customers on AWS to source these required software. There are other hybrid cloud, automation, and observability software on AWS. These software vendors will compete with IBM now for the above-mentioned customers.”

A broader portfolio of solutions

This development allows customers in the 92 countries to access IBM’s AI and data technologies through a “portfolio of 44 listings and 29 SaaS offerings” including components of watsonx AI and Data platform, the company said in the statement.

“Watsonx.data, a fit-for-purpose data store built on an open data lakehouse architecture, and Watsonx.ai, a next generation enterprise studio for AI builders are available in AWS Marketplace as well as two of IBM’s AI Assistants — watsonx Assistant and watsonx Orchestrate. Watsonx.governance is expected to be available soon,” IBM said.

Besides, the expanded offering also includes IBM’s flagship database Db2 Cloud Pak for Data as well as a portfolio of automation software including Apptio, Turbonomic, and Instana, and the IBM Security and Sustainability software portfolios — all built on Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS. “The cloud-native software enables clients to deploy on AWS while flexible licensing, including SaaS and subscription, makes it easier for clients to purchase exactly how they want,” IBM said.

In addition to the software portfolio expansion, IBM is also launching 15 new consulting services designed specifically for AWS environments. “These new service offerings are aligned to client needs and demand, focused on data and application modernization, security services, and tailored industry-specific solutions — with generative AI capabilities included in select services,” the statement added.

Collaboration Takes Center Stage

The IBM and AWS collaboration underscores an emerging trend within the tech industry.  As the demand for cloud solutions continues to grow, collaboration between major tech players is likely to become commonplace.

“It’s already common,” quipped Ranjan. “Customers on public cloud procure different software from the cloud marketplace. This helps to shorten the buying cycle if they are already in a specific cloud environment. Customers can get the same software at a lower cost if they buy from the marketplace as it would be a part of the overall contract with the cloud provider and gives the customer more negotiating power.”

Citing a Canalys study that has forecasted software-as-a-service (SaaS) market to reach $45 billion by 2025, IBM said that marketplaces help “shorten the buying cycle, consolidate billing, and make it easier to scale software deployments quickly.” Canalys, in the study, said marketplaces are the “fastest-growing route to market” for SaaS products.

“Online marketplace is offered in SaaS model that accounts for close to 60% of public cloud offerings,” Ranjan said.

Cloud Marketplaces are a haven for developers looking to build or discover and seamlessly integrate existing or new solutions respectively at scale, Shah said. “This allows the developers to adopt ready-made or quickly co-develop modules and APIs to accelerate their time to market and reduce the overall TCO. So, this extensive and deeper partnership is a win-win partnership for both AWS and IBM and their customers.” This is not only a win-win situation for the tech partners but also for the customers, Shah said. “Businesses gain access to a wider range of solutions and streamlined procurement processes, while cloud providers expand their offerings and user base,” he added.