Google Cloud Marketplace Boost: 4 Huge New Capabilities

From an expansion of its private offering capabilities to ISVs now with the ability to give margins to resellers, here are four big new launches on the Google Cloud Marketplace that partners need to know.

Google Cloud is striving this year to make Google Cloud Marketplace the “go-to-destination” for its partners and customers to deploy solutions on, says the cloud computing giant’s partner leader.

“We’re seeing explosive growth in the Marketplace,” Kevin Ichhpurani, corporate vice president of Google Cloud’s Global Partner Ecosystem and Channels, told CRN.

On Thursday, the roughly $27 billion cloud company unveiled new capabilities on the Marketplace, including expanding the functionality for partners to offer private offerings and adding more ways for resale partners to transact through Marketplace, including receiving margins from independent software vendors (ISVs).

As Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud giant looks to push more customers to buy via the Google Cloud Marketplace and Google partners put more of their own offerings on the platform, Google Cloud has unveiled several huge new capabilities that both partners and customers can leverage on the marketplace.

The 2023 Google Cloud Marketplace

The Google Cloud Marketplace lets customers quickly deploy software packages, services and a variety of integrated solutions that run on Google Cloud.

Customers from across the globe can find top solutions integrated with Google Cloud from channel partners and ISVs on the marketplace.

“The reason we’re seeing explosive growth in the Marketplace is that customers can buy a solution or a third party solution and they can decrement their [cloud spending] commits with Google Cloud, just like it’s a Google product,” said Ichhpurani.

Google’s marketplace also offers integrated billing to provider a more friction free process along with capabilities such as integrated identity access management.

“So we kind of simplify the usability. The deployment is much more simplistic because you can just do point and click provisioning. We also pay our reps on solutions via the Marketplace so it stimulates a natural go-to-market between companies,” said Ichhpurani.

Here are four new capabilities on the Google Cloud Marketplace that will be rolled out in 2023 that customers, ISVs, technology vendors and channel partners should know about.

Expanded Private Offers

Google Cloud is launching expanded capabilities for partners to build private offers on the Marketplace, with options for scheduled offers, multi-product bundles and VM-based subscriptions.

“Some of the new capabilities that we built in there, from a governance perspective, is the ability to essentially have a private catalog,” said Ichhpurani.

“Because what happens is some companies don’t want just anybody to be able to buy anything on the marketplace. They want to have their private instantiation within their enterprise. So that they can make say, ‘Hey these are the solutions, and these are the versions of those solutions, that have been sanctioned by the CIO. And you can only buy these solutions,’” Google Cloud’s partner leader said.

With these expanded capabilities, Google Cloud is seeking to meet the individual needs of every companies’ compliance requirements who are selling via the Marketplace.

Resellers Can Receive Margins From ISVs

Google Cloud is adding more capabilities for resale partners to transact through Marketplace.

The company said it is providing the channel with more opportunities to reach customers and ensure customers can purchase products via the Marketplace whether they choose to work through a resale partner or not.

“Last year, we enabled partners to resell via the Marketplace. We’ve rolled out new capabilities so that now a partner—let’s say an ISV partner—can actually give a margin to a reseller,” said Ichhpurani. “Now they have a flexible platform that allows them to agree on margins.”

Google Cloud’s channel leader said the reseller community can actually monetize for reselling third party solutions in the Marketplace.

“It creates a win-win for both the ISV as well as for the channel reseller,” he said.

New Capabilities Include Accelerated Onboarding, More Cost Management Options

In 2022, Google introduced new features to the Marketplace to give customers more flexibility to transact and quickly deploy partner products on Google Cloud and to grow the Marketplace as an effective route to market for our partners.

Improvements include reducing the standard Marketplace rate for partners to 3 percent for eligible solutions, introducing options for private offers, and rolling out an option for organizations to tailor their own Private Marketplace.

On Thursday, Google Cloud unveiled new capabilities for partners across the entire deal lifecycle.

Google Cloud said new features on the Marketplace will include accelerated onboarding for new customers and vulnerability scanning for businesses.

Additionally, the Google Cloud Marketplace will improve its customer setup, as well as add more cost management options.

New Governed Transacting And Management

Google Cloud is launching new governed transacting and management capabilities within Marketplace.

“So customers in industries with specific technology and procurement requirements, such as the U.S. public sector, can more easily utilize Marketplace with their partners,” said Ichhpurani.

The cloud giant invested heavily in the public sector market last year.

In June, Google Cloud launched a new dedicated Public Sector organization focused on driving U.S. public sector market traction.

Google Cloud hired longtime Amazon Web Services executive Troy Bertram last year to drive net new partner sales and customer cloud wins in the new Public Sector division.