Amazon Web Services expands partner programs, unveils an integrated program for VMware and AWS that will be launched in 2017
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands just weeks after VMware and Amazon agreed to bring VMware's infrastructure software to AWS starting in 2017 — today's move is AWS converting that headline partnership into an actual program structure inside its partner ecosystem, with a launch date attached.
The stakes are VMware's massive installed base of enterprise virtualization customers, whom AWS has historically struggled to reach directly, and VMware's need for a credible public-cloud answer as its own private-cloud pitch ages.
First-order effects
- Enterprises standardized on VMware get a sanctioned migration path to run their existing virtualized environments on AWS in 2017, instead of re-platforming onto native AWS services.
- VMware gains AWS as a distribution channel for its infrastructure software, while AWS's partner network absorbs a new integrated track built around a single flagship alliance.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft is forced to counter rather than cede the VMware installed base — a play that materializes later as the [[a:941158|Microsoft-Dell partnership letting Azure customers manage operations with VMware's virtualization software]].
- Once the integration ships, VMware extends it geographically and functionally, taking VMware Cloud on AWS to European customers and layering SaaS management products on top at VMworld.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, hyperscalers stop treating incumbent data-center software vendors as competitors to displace and start absorbing them as partners — locking enterprise workloads into one cloud's economics while the vendor supplies the compatibility layer.
- Hybrid cloud shifts from a transitional compromise to a durable product category, with the Salesforce-AWS integration wave showing the same co-opetition template spreading beyond infrastructure into application platforms.
The trend: Cloud providers are converting erstwhile on-premises incumbents from competitive threats into distribution partners, making hybrid cloud the default enterprise architecture rather than a bridge to full migration.