IBM’s new strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services is “critical” for partners who want to boost sales and customer wins as more and more businesses leverage the AWS Marketplace.

IBM’s worldwide channel chief Kate Woolley said IBM partners can now better leverage their customers’ cloud commitment spending, improve their co-selling abilities and leverage AWS’ vast ecosystem thanks to the new IBM-AWS partnership formed this year.

“With the AWS Marketplace, our resell partners are able to take their clients committed spend with AWS against the IBM products that are with the AWS Marketplace,” said Woolley in an interview with CRN.

“Historically, where our partners may have come up against, ‘We have this committed spend, and we’re not really sure how to bring all of these things together?’ Our resale partners can now use that committed spend through the AWS Marketplace with the IBM products,” she said.

[Related: AWS’ Ruba Borno On IBM, Cisco And AWS Marketplace Growth]

IBM-Red Hat-AWS On AWS Marketplace

Woolley, general manager of IBM’s Ecosystem, said partners also have a huge opportunity to sell holistic IBM, Red Hat and AWS solutions more easily.

“With IBM, Red Hat, AWS: partners are able to take more value to their clients by that collaboration,” she said.

“We have declared our ecosystem as one of our three strategic priorities and the AWS partnership is a critical piece of that as we think about: reaching new clients, adding more value to our existing clients, and continuing to add value for our partners as well,” said IBM’s partner ecosystem leader.

At AWS re:Invent 2022, IBM and Red Hat injected new products into the AWS Marketplace that partners can now sell.

AWS And IBM Partnership

In May, IBM and AWS formed a strategic collaboration agreement to eventually make available dozens of IBM’s bestselling software products on AWS, including IBM API Connect, IBM Db2, IBM Maximo Application Suite, IBM Security Verify, and IBM Watson Orchestrate.

At AWS re:Invent last week, IBM added IBM Envizi ESG Suite, IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, IBM Content Services and IBM App Connect Enterprise running as-a-service on AWS that both IBM and AWS partners can sell on the AWS Marketplace.

The offerings are also available to independent software vendors (ISVs) who for the first time can now obtain IBM software from the AWS Marketplace with the same benefits they have always received as IBM partners.

“As we think about where we want to meet our clients and where we’re going to add the most value to them, we want to really lean into this AWS relationship,” said Woolley.

In an interview with CRN, IBM’s channel chief dives deep into the strategy and benefits of the new IBM and AWS partnership.