Five Companies That Came To Win This Week

For the week ending Jan. 26, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their ‘A’ game to the channel including Microsoft, AWS, Deloitte, Google Cloud, Nvidia and Equinix.

The Week Ending Jan. 26

Topping this week’s Came to Win list is Microsoft for offering new channel benefits packages that support partners at different stages of growth.

Also making the list are Amazon Web Services for allowing partner third-party service resales on the AWS Marketplace, Deloitte for an acquisition in the digital engineering services space, and Google Cloud for a strategic alliance in the AI development space.

And chip designer Nvidia and data center service provider Equinix make the list for developing a new AI service that creates opportunities for partners.

Microsoft Launches New Partner Benefits Packages

Microsoft is rolling out three new types of partner benefits packages aimed at solution providers at different growth stages, providing access to Microsoft Sales Copilot, product licenses for M365 and Dynamics 365 applications, Azure credits, marketing benefits and more.

The three packages are Partner Launch Benefits, Partner Success Core Benefits and Partner Success Expanded Benefits. The packages became available this week in major markets, with available extending to most other locations by the end of March.

Microsoft solution providers building their first offering or expanding their capabilities should find a package relevant to their business, according to the company. Partner Launch Benefits is focused on product discovery and testing. Partner Success Core Benefits has more robust tools and support. And Partner Success Expanded Benefits is aimed at larger scaling.

“With the amount of innovation that Microsoft is releasing into the market, particularly around our AI workloads, it's really important that we continue to deliver benefits that support our partners’ growth and to ultimately help deliver success to their customers,” Julie Sanford, Microsoft’s vice president of partner go-to-market (GTM), programs and experiences, told CRN.

The new packages complement the core and benefits already available to partners with the Microsoft “solutions partner” designation and independent software vendors in the ISV Success program, according to the vendor.

AWS Marketplace Allows Third-Party Services Resale

Amazon Web Services provided its channel partners with a boost this week with the announcement that AWS Marketplace sellers can now officially resell third-party professional services through the popular online marketplace.

The move means that AWS channel partners, consulting partners and ISVs now can sell third-party services on the AWS Marketplace. Marketplace sellers can authorize other sellers to receive wholesale pricing on professional services, enabling sellers to offer support or implementation services. An authorized AWS partner can then use the resell authorization to customize pricing, duration, and legal terms to offer professional services that best meets customers’ needs,

“With this feature, ISVs and channel partners can grow their professional services businesses while offering software and services, and driving faster value for customers,” AWS said.

AWS also reduced the listing fees sellers need to pay to be on the Marketplace.

Deloitte Extends Digital Engineering At Scale With Giant Machines Acquisition

Deloitte has acquired Giant Machines in a move that expands the IT consultant’s digital engineering capabilities.

The acquisition brings to Deloitte a team of engineers focused on large-scale product design and development, capabilities that will help Deloitte Engineering and Deloitte Digital accelerate clients’ digital product development and delivery, Tim Juravich, Deloitte Consulting principal, told CRN.

Taking a digital product from concept to code can be a major challenge for clients, Juravich said, and can require a technology transformation such as transitioning from building data center products to developing for the web or mobile devices.

Giant Machines is a U.S.-based strategic engineering firm that is bringing Deloitte true full-stack engineers, a startup engineering mindset, and unparalleled skill sets, Juravich said. The company has 119 employees, according to LinkedIn.

Google Cloud Extends AI Development Impact With Hugging Face Alliance

Google Cloud made a significant move in the generative AI space this week with the establishment of a new partnership with AI star Hugging Face that will make Google’s GenAI technology more accessible for developers.

Hugging Face provides AI and machine learning development tools and has a large community of developers. Under the partnership with Google Cloud, Hugging Face developers can more easily access Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, its MLOps services, and other infrastructure for building AI applications and services and training Hugging Face’s AI models on Google Cloud.

Hugging Face’s tools and technology will also become available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

The partnership makes Google Cloud a strategic cloud partner for Hugging Face and a preferred destination for Hugging Face training and inference workloads. Hugging Face also has a partnership with Google Cloud rival Amazon Web Services.

Nvidia And Equinix Team On Private AI Service That Could Help Partners Close DGX System Deals

Nvidia and Equinix this week unveiled a new private AI service for businesses that want to quickly set up privately-owned supercomputers to build generative AI applications but lack the data center infrastructure and expertise to support them.

The new Equinix Private AI with Nvidia DGX is described by the two companies as a “turnkey” system in which Equinix hosts and manages Nvidia DGX supercomputers purchased by businesses through Nvidia channel partners. It’s made for businesses that don’t want their data in the public cloud for various reasons, including security, data sovereignty and auditability.

Charlie Boyle, vice president of DGX systems at Nvidia, told CRN that the new offering will help partners in the Nvidia Partner Network “make money faster, close business faster and, at the end, deliver more value to their customers” with DGX systems.

“It makes it easier for them to sell and close business. And it makes it much easier for customers to consume and get up and running with AI, so this is going to be tremendous for all our [Nvidia Partner Network] partners to accelerate business they've been working on for months and getting new business into their pipelines,” Boyle said.

With the fully managed service, the AI chip giant and data center powerhouse are hoping to solve problems they see many businesses facing: The significant amount of time it takes to plan and deploy a cluster of Nvidia DGX systems in a private data center, the lack of proper facilities to house such systems and a lack of personnel to manage them.