In today’s edition:

• Salesforce crossed $5B+ on AWS Marketplace - adding ~$3B in less than 12 months and proving marketplace is no longer just for technical buyers.

• Bain says AI advantage now depends on ecosystems - learning speed, trust, and partner execution are becoming core to competitive strategy.

• Google Cloud Next is here - and in 3 days we’re bringing senior marketplace and Cloud GTM leaders together to break down key announcements and what matters for 2026 execution.

Are you at Google Cloud Next? We’re gathering senior marketplace leaders Thursday morning with Dai Vu (MD, GCP Marketplace), John Jahnke (Tackle), and operators scaling on GCP. Last chance to request an invite.

Request an Invite

Salesforce added $3B on AWS Marketplace in less than a year

Salesforce quietly became AWS Marketplace’s fastest-growing ISV - and just crossed $5B+. A line-of-business software company is now setting the new cloud marketplace benchmark.

Not cybersecurity. Not infra. Not dev tools.

It is CRM, sales, marketing, data and AI software.

Salesforce resets the marketplace growth timeline

• Nov 2023: Salesforce announces AWS Marketplace listing

• Early 2024: First products go live

• Dec 2024 (Q3 FY25): Marketplace transactions double QoQ, 10 deals of $1M+

• May 2025 (Q1 FY26): Hit $2B total, tripling YoY, fastest-growing ISV on AWS

• April 2026: Matt Yanchyshyn, VP of AWS Marketplace, confirms publicly: “Salesforce publicly says that they did over $5 billion with marketplace”

That is ~$3B added in less than 12 months.

To put it in perspective: the incremental $3B equals ~7% of Salesforce’s FY26 $41.5B revenue - through a channel they didn’t have 30 months ago.

The “$2B Marketplace Club” now extends beyond cybersecurity and data

• Snowflake: $2B on AWS in 2025 alone (~45% of revenue)

• Datadog: crossed $2B cumulative on AWS

• Palo Alto Networks: $2B on Google Cloud MP (+$500M in 8 months)

• CrowdStrike: $1.5B on AWS, $150M in Year 1 on GCP

• Okta: ~$750M/year on AWS - next to join the $2B club

Now Salesforce is on top of this list.

But the bigger story is what Salesforce sells.

For years, many assumed cloud marketplaces were mostly for technical buyers. AWS itself is now saying otherwise.

Matt Yanchyshyn on the buyer shift in a recent interview:

“We’re seeing increasingly new categories of line-of-business buyers… business applications like ServiceNow, Workday, Adobe and Salesforce are attracting different types of customers to the marketplace.”

That’s the shift. Marketplace is moving higher up the stack - closer to business workflows, closer to AI agents, closer to how enterprises actually want to buy.

The timing is not coincidental

Salesforce is rebuilding for the agentic era under heavy investor pressure (stock down 30%+ YTD).

Marketplace helps on three fronts:

• Lower cost of sales: marketplace motion can reduce friction, shorten procurement, and support operating leverage.

• Larger enterprise deal flow: Marketplace pulls procurement, finance, cloud commitments, and co-sell into the same motion.

• Agent monetization: Agentforce-style usage pricing maps natively to consumption-based Marketplace billing, which marketplaces handle far better than legacy enterprise contracts.

This is Salesforce rebuilding part of one of the world’s strongest direct sales machines around a new buying motion.

3 takeaways for alliance leaders

1. Treat marketplace as an operating motion. Salesforce is embedding Marketplace thinking into 10K+ AEs, partners, procurement, and AI GTM.

2. Reset the benchmark. $5B is the new ceiling - until someone breaks it.

3. Don’t assume your buyer “isn’t a marketplace buyer.” If LOB software sells this way, Marketplace is no longer a technical channel.

Is $5B the new $2B for cloud marketplace winners?

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Last Chance: GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast at Next

Google Cloud Next is here, and this will be a big week for GCP Marketplace, AI, and ecosystem strategy.

By Thursday morning, the announcements will be out. We’re bringing alliance and Cloud GTM leaders together to compare notes on what actually matters for 2026 execution.

That’s what our GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast is built for.

3 days out. Last chance to request an invite.

Featured speakers

• Dai Vu - Managing Director, Google Cloud Marketplace. GCP Marketplace has sustained triple-digit annual growth for years. Billions in GTV. $240B in customer cloud commits that increasingly flow through Marketplace to ISVs. Dai leads it globally.

• Subhash Jawahrani - Principal BDM, Data Platform & AI, GCP Marketplace. Google Cloud view on where AI and data workloads are landing, and what that means for ISV co-sell and marketplace growth.

• John Jahnke - CEO, Tackle.io. $20B+ processed across hyperscaler marketplaces. $1B/month today. John’s line: “Most ISVs who failed at cloud marketplace weren’t strategic.” Expect him to unpack what that looks like on GCP specifically.

• David Mauer - VP of Channel & Alliances, LucidLink. Helped drive $100M+ in hyperscaler marketplace revenue at GitLab. A year into LucidLink, he has rebuilt the partner program for scale around one thesis: channel, marketplace, and technology alliances should work together, not against each other.

• Rolf Heimes - Head of Ecosystems, Incorta. 20+ years scaling partner ecosystems. At Talend, he led partnerships to >50% of ACV. At Incorta, he is working on one of the core data problems blocking enterprise AI: getting live Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce data into Gemini and BigQuery in a form companies can actually use.

• Roman Kirsanov - CEO, Partner Insight.

Beyond the speakers, expect a high-quality room: senior alliance, marketplace, and Cloud GTM leaders from ISVs, ecosystem partners, and GCP. The kind of group where the conversations before and after the sessions may be as useful as the sessions themselves.

The backdrop, in numbers

• Google Cloud revenue grew 48% YoY last quarter

• Annual run rate crossed $70B

• Customer cloud commitments reached $240B

• Revenue from partner-built AI solutions grew ~300% YoY

• Commitments from Google’s top 15 software partners increased 16x+ YoY

The co-sell and marketplace math is shifting fast.

This breakfast is where we process it with the people shaping the strategy and the operators scaling on GCP.

📅 April 23, 7:30–9:30 am PT at Hakkasan Restaurant Las Vegas (near Mandalay Bay)

Request an Invite

Spaces are limited and confirmation is required.

Brought to you in partnership with:

​Tackle.io (Presenting Partner) - the leading Cloud GTM platform helping software companies generate revenue through the hyperscalers. From co-sell automation to marketplace analytics, Tackle gives ISVs all they need to turn marketplaces into a strategic revenue channel.​
​
LucidLink - enables teams to access, collaborate on and stream large files in real time without moving data or breaking workflow.

Incorta​ - giving enterprise AI the live operational context, by connecting Oracle, SAP, and Salesforce data directly to BigQuery and Gemini.

Bain: Partnerships Just Became Core to Winning in AI

Bain put partnerships at the center of competitive strategy for the AI era.

Not just as a growth lever. As part of how companies will build, learn, and scale.

In a new report, Bain & Company maps three tech eras of competition:

• Information era rewarded scale

• Platform era rewarded network effects

• AI era? It rewards three things: velocity of learning, proprietary data, and trust-based ecosystem control.

In AI, advantage will come from learning faster, embedding deeper into customer workflows, and earning enough trust to help orchestrate how work gets done.

“Ecosystem partnerships provide the scale and experience needed to compete”

Competing in AI now requires capabilities that are hard to build in isolation.

AI now spans data, governance, workflows, orchestration, evaluation, and deployment. That creates a much bigger role for ecosystems.

Four implications for alliance leaders:

1. Partnership value now includes learning speed, not just reach

The old question was often: which partners help us sell more?

Now another question matters just as much: which partners help us learn faster?

Who helps you improve implementation?

Who brings reusable patterns across customers?

Who helps your teams adapt as AI capabilities change every quarter?

The strongest partners in the AI era may be the ones that accelerate learning, not just distribution.

2. Trust becomes a real control point

As AI agents start orchestrating more decisions and workflows, the company that earns trust to run those agents gains the control point.

For ecosystem leaders, trust is built through governance, reliability, security and transparency.

This is especially important in enterprise software, where customers will not let AI touch critical processes without strong controls.

3. The services opportunity gets bigger and more operational

Bain also argues that AI has to be industrialized through an “agent factory” — a repeatable process for building, testing, deploying, and governing agents at scale.

That is a major opening for SIs, GSIs, cloud partners, and specialist ecosystem players.

The value will not sit only in access to models. It will sit in workflow design, orchestration, evaluation, governance, and repeatable delivery.

This is why every hyperscaler launched AI agent platforms in the past year.

4. Differentiation moves higher up the stack

Advantage will come from proprietary knowledge, personalized workflows, and strong user communities.

For alliance leaders, that is a signal when choosing where to invest.

The best partnerships will not just add another integration.

They will deepen workflow fit, improve outcomes, and make the ecosystem harder to replace.

3 Lessons:

1. Treat ecosystem strategy as a company-level competitive asset

2. Prioritize partners with high learning speed

3. Build trust and repeatable delivery into your AI strategy early

Where is your org on the AI partnership curve?

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P.S. Thanks for reading! If this newsletter sparked an idea, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud counterpart — it’s how this community shares what works.

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This week:

• Accenture’s new report moves ecosystem into the digital core — 86% of organizations plan to increase AI investment in 2026, but only 21% have redesigned processes around it. That readiness gap is where partner value gets created.

• AWS AI crossed a $15B run rate — and Bedrock nearly doubled month over month in March, a strong signal that hyperscaler AI businesses are scaling fast (and partner opportunity is getting much bigger).

• MongoDB, Quantum Metric, and Tackle break down what actually works in Google Cloud co-sell — from reframing committed spend, to aligning early with the field, to why agents may reshape marketplace distribution entirely.

But before we dive in: in 10 days we're hosting our GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast at Google Cloud Next '26.

Dai Vu (Managing Director, Google Cloud Marketplace), Subhash Jawahrani, John Jahnke, and other senior leaders will break down what Next’s announcements actually mean for ISVs and partners. If you’ll be at Next, join us on April 23, 7:30–9:30 am PT.

Request an Invite

Why Partners Are Now Core to Enterprise AI Scale

This may be the clearest signal yet that partnerships are now central to enterprise AI strategy. In Accenture’s latest report, ecosystem moved to the digital core.

That is what stood out to me in a new report authored by Accenture’s Chief Strategy and Services Officer and Chief Products Officer — two leaders who oversee $8B+ portfolio and 6,000 AI engagements.

The attached chart is telling.

Partners drive in many ways the AI transformation from Siloed AI to Structural AI to Systemic AI:

• Early stage: limited partnerships with hyperscalers and AI vendors

• Next stage: strategic alliances with partners

• Advanced stage: innovation networks with partners

As enterprise AI matures, partners move from external suppliers to part of the architecture required to scale.

Accenture underscores:

“To accelerate the architecture modernization that AI demands, technology organizations have to engage with ecosystem partners to access talent, leverage specialized tools and co-innovate.”

That line should get the attention of alliance leaders, because it validates something many of us are already seeing:

AI demand is creating demand for cloud foundations, partner orchestration, integration, and modernization.

The numbers behind it are striking

86% of organizations plan to increase AI investment in 2026. But only 21% have redesigned end-to-end processes with AI at the core.

Budget is flowing. Readiness is not. That gap is where a lot of ecosystem value will be created.

Cloud sits right at the center of it.

Accenture writes: “Organizations that unlock AI’s full potential treat cloud adoption as a strategic requirement.”

And then: “Only 16% of organizations, those with mature cloud foundations and strong guardrails, can capture additional benefits from AI and agentic systems.”

Cloud readiness is becoming one of the clearest dividing lines between companies running pilots and companies capturing real AI value.

At the same time, 70% of technology budgets still support legacy systems, which helps explain why partners matter even more now.

Most enterprises cannot modernize data, governance, security, and architecture fast enough on their own.

That is also why Accenture’s buy-build-boost framing is useful:

• Buy where speed and existing capability matter

• Build where differentiation is real

• Boost by layering proprietary data, workflows, and guardrails on top of partner platforms

The technology framework is increasingly a partner strategy framework.

Meanwhile, as AI pushes enterprises toward cloud-native foundations and ecosystem-led modernization, hyperscaler ecosystems gain even more gravity. Which brings us back to their marketplaces becoming more important over time.

3 takeaways:

1. Position around AI readiness, not just partner motions

2. Be clear where your company fits: buy, build, or boost

3. Expect partners and cloud ecosystems to become more central in enterprise AI buying and delivery

Source

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Join our GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast at Google Cloud Next ‘26

I’m delighted to invite you to the GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast at Google Cloud Next ‘26 — a curated breakfast for senior alliance and cloud GTM leaders.

​We’ll go beyond the announcements to discuss the Google Cloud Marketplace, AI, and ecosystem moves that matter most coming out of Next — and how leading ISVs can turn GCP Marketplace into co-sell momentum, partner leverage, and revenue in 2026.

​Featured Speakers

• ​Dai Vu — Managing Director, Google Cloud Marketplace (driving its triple-digit growth, billions in GTV)

• ​Subhash Jawahrani — Principal BDM, Data Platform & AI, Google Cloud Marketplace

• ​John Jahnke — CEO, Tackle.io

• ​Roman Kirsanov — Founder & CEO, Partner Insight

By Thursday morning at Next, the major announcements will already be out. This breakfast is where we process what they mean - with the people shaping the strategy. Plus we’ll compare notes with operators who are actually scaling on the platform.

​Why join

• ​Google Cloud Marketplace direction — from the top. Dai Vu leads GCP Marketplace globally. Hear from him on what’s coming next — in a room of 50, not a keynote of 5,000.

• ​Direct perspective from Google Cloud team — what matters most for ISVs and ecosystem leaders in 2026

• ​Operator-level insight. How leading ISVs are structuring co-sell, scaling through channel, leveraging AI and operationalizing marketplace GTM on Google Cloud

• ​Network in senior peer room — alliance, marketplace, and GTM leaders from high-growth ISVs, ecosystem partners, and Google Cloud

​You’ll leave with a sharper view of Google Cloud Marketplace priorities and a short list of ideas worth acting on during Next and after it.

📅 April 23, 7:30–9:30 am PT at Hakkasan Restaurant Las Vegas (near Mandalay Bay)

Request an Invite

Spaces are limited and confirmation is required.

Thanks to our partner Tackle for supporting this event

Tackle (now part of AppDirect) is the Cloud GTM platform built to help software companies win in the cloud. As the category creator and leader in Cloud GTM, Tackle enables ISVs to list, transact, and scale through the hyperscalers.

Tackle streamlines every stage of the cloud marketplace journey with deep co-sell automations, private offer management, and real-time marketplace analytics.

AWS AI Crossed $15B — Partner Opportunity Got Much Bigger

AWS AI crossed $15B+ run rate — putting it in the same revenue tier as OpenAI and Anthropic. Andy Jassy’s shareholder letter confirmed: the AI business on AWS isn’t a forecast. It’s already massive.

Here’s what last week’s letter reveals, and why partners should pay close attention.

AWS grew 20% YoY to $129B in 2025, with Q4 accelerating to 24% at a $142B run rate.

But the AI-specific number is what stands out.

Three years into the AI wave, AWS AI revenue is “ascending rapidly”— its $15B run rate in Q1 2026, ~260x larger than AWS itself was at the same point in its history.

For context, Microsoft’s last explicit AI revenue disclosure was ~$13B annualized last year

Google Cloud has been vaguer, describing “billions in quarterly AI revenue.”

On the lab side, Reuters reported OpenAI at $25B+ and Anthropic at $30B+ — but those comparisons are a bit messy because the business models and revenue accounting differ significantly from hyperscalers.

The point: AWS AI is now a top-tier AI revenue business in its own right. That shapes the co-sell focus and the math for every ISV and partner on the platform.

Three signals partners should watch:

1. Bedrock is becoming the center of gravity

Jassy said Bedrock nearly doubled month-over-month in March and processed more tokens in Q1 2026 than in all prior years combined.

2. AWS is showcasing a full AI stack

Jassy explicitly named SageMaker, Bedrock, Trainium, Strands (agent-building), AgentCore (agent environments), and turnkey agents like Kiro, Transform, and Quick. Each one is a potential integration point — and a “better together” story that AWS sellers can bring to customers.

3. ~$200B in capex for 2026, backed by customer commitments

Jassy said customer commitments already cover a substantial portion of this spend. That means the cloud commit backlog is growing fast. More commits = more marketplace-eligible budgets.

One more important number:

Jassy reiterated that 85% of global IT spend is still on-prem. AWS is a $142B business and has barely scratched the surface.

The migration, modernization, and AI adoption work ahead will take years — and ISVs who position their products as part of that journey will ride the wave alongside AWS.

What this means for alliance leaders:

• If your product touches AI, data, or agent workflows — align your roadmap to Bedrock and the broader AI stack. That’s where AWS focus and incentives are headed.

• $15B is a very large number. So is the investment behind it. The $200B capex figure is your market sizing slide for the years ahead (apply partner multiplier)

• If most IT spend is still on-prem, the real partner prize is helping customers modernize and operationalize AI at the same time.

What’s your read on what AWS AI growth means for ISVs and partners?

Source: Andy Jassy’s shareholder letter

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Insights from Co-Sell & Joint GTM Panel: Google Cloud Marketplace Online Event

During our recent Google Cloud Marketplace event, we brought together leaders from Google Cloud, MongoDB (6X Partner of the Year), Quantum Metric (~60% of revenue influenced by GCP), and Tackle to break down what it actually takes to scale on Google Cloud Marketplace.

Here are my top 5 takeaways from the panel with Kevin Goodspeed (Google Cloud):

1. Reframe how customers think about committed spend

John Murray (MongoDB — 6X GCP Partner of the Year):

“A lot of them view it as a sunk cost or just a procurement exercise. In reality, it’s a strategic lever.”

When a customer buys your software on Marketplace, they’re not adding net-new spend. They’re accelerating initiatives already budgeted for — burning down commit while maximizing ROI on dollars already committed.

Do that well, and “Marketplace stops being a billing vehicle and becomes this growth engine. You’re not just closing a single deal, you’re unlocking this multi-phased project where customers modernize their entire platforms.”

2. Co-sell is a system, not a tactic

John Jahnke (Tackle.io processes $1B in marketplace transactions/month):

“This is a strategy, people, process, and technology problem. The automation’s not going to solve the problem for you.”

The pattern he sees often — broad-based enablement where nothing happens. His advice: start with a tiger team. 5 deals. 20 co-sells. Learn what works, build the story, then go broad.

Russell Efird on the other side:

“If you wait till the very end, most of your deals are gonna have friction. That’s not the point of co-selling.”

Early engagement is what unlocks the co-sell & marketplace benefits.

3. Align to what matters to the Google rep right now

Russell (~60% of Quantum Metric’s net-new revenue is influenced by GCP) was direct:

“The key to maintaining strong engagement in that co-sell motion is aligning to what matters most to the Google rep in the moment.”

This year, that’s Gemini Enterprise. Quantum Metric built their Felix AI agent on Vertex, leveraging Gemini Pro, supporting ADK and A2A protocol. That alignment is what drives field attention at scale.

4. PLG changes the conversation

MongoDB offers a 14-day free trial on GCP Marketplace. By the time sellers engage,

“it’s no longer this theoretical thought idea — it’s about scaling something that’s already working.”

The conversation shifts from “why this ISV” to “how fast can we expand.” They run ~4 webinars/year with a direct CTA to the free trial. Simple, repeatable, frictionless.

5. Agents meet marketplaces

John Murray:

“Marketplaces are going to be the primary distribution channel for agents, not just software. They’ll be optimized for agents and evolve towards selling capabilities and outcomes.”

Still early — but the distribution question is already being answered.

📍 PS. Heading to Google Cloud Next?

We’re hosting a GCP Marketplace Strategic Breakfast on April 23 in Vegas. Curated room, senior leaders — Dai Vu, Subhash Jawahrani, John Jahnke will be speaking

📅 April 23, 7:30–9:30 am PT at Hakkasan Restaurant Las Vegas (near Mandalay Bay)

Request an Invite

Spaces are limited and confirmation is required.

Looking forward to seeing you in Vegas!

This week, two $1B+ software companies show where partner leverage is really driving growth — and why cloud marketplace execution is becoming a core GTM advantage.

• DocuSign’s 30%+ partner growth reveals how AI can reshape Cloud GTM — with IAM hitting $350M+ ARR, Microsoft actively co-selling a 3-year marketplace deal, and partners becoming essential to enterprise expansion.

• Two partners now drive 30% of SentinelOne’s $1B revenue — while its top 10 MSSP partners grew ACV 75%, showing how elite partner concentration can scale revenue without scaling headcount.

• Enrollment is now open for our June 2 Cloud GTM Leader cohort — helping leaders build repeatable marketplace growth: from first $1M+ deals to 4X YoY growth from an already high base.

Before we dive in: if this newsletter helps you stay sharp on cloud marketplaces, forward it to one alliance or GTM leader on your team who should be reading it.

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Microsoft “really leaned in.” DocuSign 30% partner growth

DocuSign just showed what happens when an AI product forces a real partner and marketplace transformation.
In one quarter, partner-contributed bookings grew 30%+ YoY, and a 3-year deal was closed via Microsoft Marketplace where Microsoft “really leaned in” and was “a big part of the sale.”

Their formula is what caught my attention:

New partner program + New AI product motion + Marketplace transaction +
Active hyperscaler co-sell

Here’s what stands out.

The partner push followed the product shift

At the start of FY26, DocuSign relaunched its partner program around IAM.

IAM is not lightweight e-signature, it is an end-to-end agreement platform spanning sales, procurement, HR, legal, analytics, workflow, identity, and now agentic use cases.

When a product becomes more cross-functional and enterprise-wide, partner involvement usually rises with it.

Fast forward 12 months >> DocuSign partner-contributed bookings grew 30%+ YoY in Q4.

Azure Marketplace signal is even more telling

DocuSign signed the Bank of Queensland deal — a three-year strategic agreement — closed through Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Microsoft didn’t just process the transaction. They actively co-sold it.

CEO Allan Thygesen: “I’ve been thrilled with Microsoft as a partner. They really leaned in here and were a big part of the sale. In fact, a Microsoft leader presented that case at our conference last week to the entire partner community.”

This is cloud GTM at its best:

• customer buys via marketplace

• cloud commits help the economics

• hyperscaler field gets involved

• partner champions the deal internally

That is a very different story from “we listed on marketplace.” It is marketplace as part of enterprise co-sell.

IAM is already big enough to change how the company sells

After only 18 months, IAM reached $350M+ ARR and 10.8% of total ARR, up from 2.3% a year earlier.

Complex AI products rarely stay direct-only for long.

They pull in SIs, cloud sellers, workflow partners, and specialist services because the real work is not the demo. It is deployment, process redesign, trust, and adoption.

DocuSign is trying to become infrastructure for the agentic layer

The company said IAM now connects via MCP to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Agentforce.

Instead of betting on one AI vendor, they are making agreement data and workflows available wherever enterprise users will work.

Their CEO said EVERY major model provider is interested because agreements are one of the key data elements customers want to expose and act on.

It is a play to become the agreement layer inside enterprise AI workflows.

The broader GTM model is becoming more diversified

DocuSign disclosed that digital sales were 15% of total revenue growing faster than overall revenue.

So the shape of the machine is becoming clearer:

• Digital lands

• Direct expands

• Partners scale delivery and co-sell

• Marketplace helps transact enterprise demand

That is much more durable than relying on one route to market.

3 lessons for alliance leaders:

1. When product complexity rises, partner contribution can rise much faster than most teams expect.

2. Marketplace becomes strategic when the hyperscaler field is actively helping win the deal, not just process it.

3. The strongest AI partnerships are often built by controlling a critical workflow and making it available across the ecosystem.

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Two Partners Drive 30% of SentinelOne’s $1B Revenue

SentinelOne just crossed $1B in revenue, growing 22% YoY — and nearly a third of that flows through just 2 channel partners.

That’s not a “side channel”. That’s the business.

In FY 2026, SentinelOne surpassed $1B in revenue. In Q4, it added a record $64M in net new ARR.

But the more interesting story for alliance, marketplace, and partner leaders is this:

SentinelOne is running a partner-dependent growth model.

A few signals stood out:

Substantially all sales flow through channel partners

At $1B scale, that is worth pausing on. SentinelOne says in its reporting:

“Substantially all of our sales are fulfilled through our channel partners, including resellers, distributors, MSPs, MSSPs, MDRs, OEMs, and IR firms, and we expect that we will continue to generate a significant portion of our revenue from channel partners for the foreseeable future.”

Two channel partners alone drove 30% of total revenue

One represented 18% of revenue, another 12%. That shows the upside of deep channel alignment at scale — and the level of concentration the model can create when it works.

MSSPs are a major growth engine

CEO Tomer Weingarten said the company achieved over 60% ACV growth with its top 20 MSSP partners, and over 75% with its top 10.

That matters even more because these partners are not just reselling endpoint anymore. Management said they are adopting AI, data, cloud, and broader platform solutions and standardizing on SentinelOne.

In some segments partners run the full sales cycle

SentinelOne says that in specific market segments, channel partners independently manage the complete sales cycle.

That is not partner-assisted selling. That is outsourced scale.

Hyperscaler partnerships are deepening on two fronts

First, SentinelOne is integrating across cloud marketplaces and AI services — positioning as both a marketplace seller and an AI services integration partner.

Second, they signed a multi-year infrastructure partnership with a global hyperscaler where their threat intelligence data now pairs with the hyperscaler’s native threat intelligence services.

That’s co-build, not just co-sell. And their platform runs primarily on Amazon Web Services (AWS) across multiple regions, with Google Cloud as secondary — making SentinelOne a significant cloud customer itself.

Partners are also the leverage story

When asked about growth, Weingarten said:

“I do not think you are going to see us grow headcount in a significant way, and it will imply that sales productivity, which is reflected in the margin guide, is going to get better. And we are clear on our continued upmarket trajectory. We are clear on the need and the desire to do more with our partner base. We are clear about the potential in our partner base.”

When a $1B company says “no headcount growth” and “do more with partners” in the same breath, it tells you where the operating leverage lives. Partners are the margin story now.

Three lessons for alliance leaders:

1. Partner-led growth gets more powerful when partners own real parts of the sales process

2. The best hyperscaler partnerships combine marketplace distribution, co-sell, and co-building.

3. In the AI era, partners are not just routes to market. They are part of the product and scale model

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Turn Marketplace Into a Real Revenue Driver: 5-week course for Alliance & Cloud GTM Leaders

If Marketplace only shows up at the end of the deal, it is not a GTM motion.

It is firefighting.

And that is where many Cloud GTM teams get stuck.

• A rep pulls alliances in late

• A private offer becomes urgent

• The cloud rep gets a vague ask

• Procurement shows up in the final week

• The “win” depends on one person who knows the maze.

It may save the deal.

But it does not compound.

That is the pattern I keep seeing across SaaS and AI companies trying to scale on AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud.

They are “doing marketplace.”

But they are not building a repeatable Cloud GTM growth system.

The teams pulling ahead do a few things differently:

• they identify marketplace as a buying path earlier, not at the end

• they train sales to use it, instead of treating it as an alliances side project

• they make co-sell structured: real context, clear asks, better timing

• they connect channel, marketplace, and cloud field into one motion

• they build internal support across finance, ops, product, and leadership

That is what turns marketplace from extra work into leverage.

And it matters more now than it did even a year ago.

Cloud commitments across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, and Google Cloud have crossed $900B.

Customers are more open to buying software digitally.

But they are also more selective.

Co-sell is getting more competitive.

And AI is reshaping how software gets discovered, packaged, and sold through hyperscaler ecosystems.

So the gap is widening: between teams that are listed and teams that turned marketplace into a repeatable revenue driver.

David Mauer — who helped drive $100M+ in marketplace revenue at GitLab and is now rebuilding the motion at LucidLink — put it well in our Q1 recap last week:
”You never want a customer to tell you how they want to buy and have to say no.”

Over the past 2.5 years, 300+ alliance and Cloud GTM leaders have gone through our Cloud GTM Leader course to build that capability.

• Some launched from zero marketplace motion to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks.

• Others closed their first $1M+ marketplace deal and turned it into a repeatable motion.

• Some scaled marketplace revenue 4X YoY from an already high base.

That is not because they found one trick.

It is because they built the growth system.

Our next cohort starts on June 2

If you want to turn marketplace into a real growth driver — not just push isolated deals through it — this is what we work on for 5 weeks.

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P.S. Thanks for reading! If this issue sparked an idea, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud counterpart — it’s how this community shares what works.

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Here’s what’s inside this week:

• Only 3% of CIOs expect AI to lead to more vendors — 54% are actively consolidating. What a recent CIO survey reveals about their buying patterns

• AI-mature buyers are ready to spend 2X more via digital self-serve, averaging $1M deals — the exact shift pushing marketplaces and cloud GTM into the mainstream

• Cohort 15 starts April 7 — the 5-week system behind marketplace motions that helped alumni go from zero to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks

Before we dive in — I’m running a free Cloud GTM Quarterly Live this Thursday, April 2nd, where I’ll break down the 7 most important signals from Q1 and what alliance, marketplace, and GTM leaders should do with them in Q2. Cloud commits growth, co-sell case studies, AI distribution shifts — all of it. Save your spot below.

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Only 3% of CIOs expect AI to lead to more vendors. 54% are consolidating

The latest CIO survey by Redpoint suggests the software battle is changing.

The hard part is no longer just getting added as a vendor. It is staying on the list at all.

Five insights stood out to me from Redpoint Ventures’ recent market update and its CIO Software & AI Survey (March 2026):

1. Incumbents have an edge — but not a lock

58% of CIOs said AI feature additions are the main reason software budgets are growing — the highest of any category.

54% of CIOs prefer their existing vendors to add AI over switching to AI-native alternatives

But look deeper:

• Only 17% have a strong preference for incumbents adding AI.

• 37% have only a slight preference.

• And 33% are neutral.

So install base still matters. But weak products without AI capabilities are not protected.

2. Vendor consolidation is not slowing down. It may accelerate.

• 54% of CIOs are actively pursuing vendor consolidation.

• 45% of AI budgets are replacing existing software budgets.

• Only 3% expect AI to lead to more vendors.

AI is not opening unlimited new budget lines. In many cases, it is forcing a re-ranking of who deserves to stay in the stack.

3. Buyers still care more about best-of-breed products and integrations than price

When CIOs rank what matters most in vendor selection (after AI), they need:

• 45% best-of-breed functionality

• 45% integrations

• 33% security/compliance

• vs. 29% price

Trusted sales process is at a mere 9%

The bar is not just “has AI.” The bar is “works inside my environment and is worth the risk.”

Meanwhile, the cloud layer keeps getting bigger.

4. AWS, GCP and Microsoft capex jumped from $211B in 2024 to an estimated $509B in 2026

• Google’s 2024–2027E CAGR is shown at 49%

• Microsoft’s at 33%

• Amazon’s at 22%

My takeaway: more AI infrastructure spend creates more room for partner-led consumption, co-sell motions, and ecosystem pull-through. The cloud partner opportunity isn’t shrinking. It’s expanding — driven by AI workloads.

5. The real TAM shift: from software to labor

Redpoint’s agent maturity curve suggests we are moving from copilots toward task agents. That is a bigger shift than adding AI features into existing apps.

Once AI starts completing tasks end-to-end with human oversight, the addressable market moves beyond software spend and into labor spend.

Redpoint estimates that Task Agents alone expand the addressable market from ~$0.5T (US software) to $1.2T.

For cloud alliance and marketplace leaders, I take away 3 lessons:

• Your AI roadmap is now your retention and growth strategies. CIOs will stay with incumbents — but only if AI delivery is real

• Consolidation pressure means the winners will be partners embedded in strategic platforms, including cloud marketplaces

• Pricing models are shifting: 46% of CIOs expect usage- or outcome-based pricing to become more common. 29% say seat-based pricing will decline. This maps directly to cloud marketplace economics.

What’s your strategy?

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Cloud GTM Quarterly Live: 7 Insights & Playbooks to Win Q2

Every quarter I analyze company data, hyperscaler updates, marketplace trends, co-sell patterns, and what we’re seeing across our events and Cloud GTM community.

Q1 was one of the more interesting quarters — a lot accelerated at once.

Cloud commits keep climbing (~$900B across the three hyperscalers). The budget conversation is shifting from “should we buy through marketplace” to “how fast can we execute.”
The companies growing fastest are integrating Cloud GTM deeper across sales and partner teams. And AI is now changing how software gets distributed, how deals get structured, and how co-sell works on all three clouds.

I’m running a free live briefing this Thursday to walk through all of it.

I’ll share the most important signals from Q1 — from market moves, top-performing companies, and hyperscaler shifts — and what alliance, marketplace, and GTM leaders should actually do with them in Q2.

We’ll cover:

• 7 signals from Q1 shaping Q2 priorities across AWS, Microsoft, and GCP

• What’s actually working in co-sell — and where friction is increasing

• Cloud commits tracker: where budget is moving

• How AI is changing distribution and GTM on marketplaces

• Operator patterns separating teams that are scaling from teams that aren’t

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This session leads into Cohort 15 of Cloud GTM Leader course starting April 7.

AI-Mature Buyers Are Spending 2X More via Digital Self-Serve

AI-forward buyers are driving digital spend according to McKinsey. The most AI-mature group is ready to transact $1M+ deals through end-to-end digital self-serve.

McKinsey & Company’s latest B2B survey of 3,000+ decision-makers across 18 countries points to a shift that cloud alliance, marketplace, and GTM leaders should take seriously.

As customers mature with agentic AI, they buy digitally, buy larger, and move faster with less human mediation.

Digital is no longer just a convenience layer. McKinsey calls it a shift toward a “primary growth engine.”

Here is what stood out:

1. AI maturity changes deal size

The most AI-mature buyers are willing to transact more than $1M through fully digital, end-to-end channels. That is roughly 2X the level of peers still in early pilots.

Each step up in AI maturity is linked to a 20–45% increase in the value customers are willing to buy digitally. This is not a one-off jump. It is a compounding shift in behavior.

2. Buying behavior is changing, not just channel preference

Agentic AI is reducing reliance on human-mediated interactions and increasing comfort with automated, end-to-end digital journeys.

AI is not only changing what companies buy. It is changing how they buy.

3. Human support still matters

About one-third of B2B customers expect digital-first interactions over the next 12 months. But nearly 60% still prefer hybrid models that combine digital and remote human interaction.

The winners will not be self-serve only. They will make digital easy, then bring in the right human support at the right moment.

4. Demand is moving faster than execution

Roughly 80% of large and mid-size enterprises already have agentic AI in some form. Fully implemented deployments are expected to grow 2.3–2.4X in the next 12–18 months.

But only 3–11% have reached full scale in any individual use case. That gap creates room for partners, SIs, and AI-native vendors that can help customers move from pilots to repeatable deployment.

5. Buyers want to buy AI, not build it

Across use cases, roughly 80% of B2B customers prefer off-the-shelf solutions, managed services, or third-party custom builds over building internally.

And no provider type has clearly won yet. That makes this market more open than many people think.

A few lessons for alliance and GTM leaders:

1. Treat digital buying as a core GTM capability, not a secondary channel

2. Design hybrid journeys where sales, partners, and digital channels work together

3. Lead with trust, packaging, and frictionless execution — security is now the #1 reason enterprises switch providers

Cloud marketplaces sit inside this shift, but the lesson is broader: AI is training enterprise buyers to spend more through digital channels. The companies that make buying easier now will have the edge later.

What’s changing in how buyers purchase your solutions?

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Cohort 15 Starts April 7: Turn Marketplace Into a Real Growth Driver in 2026

Enterprises have committed $900B+ to AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud — budgets you can tap into via cloud marketplaces. For SaaS and AI companies, Cloud GTM is no longer optional. It is becoming a core lever for revenue growth, faster sales cycles, and easier enterprise procurement.

The most advanced GTM teams – from scaleups to public companies – are rewriting the rules. They’re using marketplaces and co-sell to scale revenue faster, compress sales cycles by 40-60%, and make buying frictionless.

Real results from real companies

Over the past 2.5 years, 300+ alliance leaders have completed Cloud GTM Leader course and built this capability. Examples of what alumni have achieved:

• Launched from zero marketplace motion to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks

• Closed their first $1M+ marketplace deal and turned it into a repeatable motion

• Scaled marketplace revenue 4X YoY from an already high eight-figure base

These aren’t outliers. They’re alliance leaders who invested 5 weeks to master the frameworks, tactics, and relationships that drive cloud GTM success.

What we master in 5 weeks:

• How to tap into cloud commits + marketplace buying processes

• Co-sell patterns with hyperscaler field teams that actually create pipeline

• How to position on marketplaces so sellers choose you among thousands of vendors

• Frameworks to align sales, product, finance, and ops around one cloud GTM plan

• How to accelerate deals with smart co-marketing (and more)

If you want marketplace to become a real growth driver in 2026, join Cohort 15 starting April 7.

What alumni are saying

“I wish I had this knowledge before I started my role in the GTM department last year.”

“As someone who has built AWS alliances twice, driven marketplace success, and led cross-functional GTM motions, this program elevated my perspective and sharpened my thinking around cloud co-sell programs, marketplace motions, channel strategy, and scalable GTM frameworks. Highly recommend.”

Save Your Spot: Cohort 15

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works

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Ahead of tomorrow’s event, I’m focused on one question: what’s working on Google Cloud Marketplace right now — and how can you replicate it?

• Palo Alto Networks crossed $2B+ in GCP Marketplace sales. Optiv drove triple-digit marketplace growth. Quantum Metric is already scaling one of the earliest agentic AI solutions on GCP Marketplace. The leaders behind those numbers are joining our Google Cloud Marketplace event tomorrow.

• 28% of companies plan new Google Cloud Marketplace listings in 2026 — the strongest momentum of any hyperscaler, according to Tackle’s latest data. Their CEO also joins tomorrow’s event

• Plus, Jensen Huang at GTC said $1T in AI infrastructure demand is coming through 2027, with 60% from top hyperscalers. His comments reveal what clouds actually want from strategic partners.

But first — Dai Vu recorded a personal invite from the floor of NVIDIA GTC. What Google Cloud’s Marketplace chief sees as the growth engine for partners in 2026

Special invite from Dai Vu to the “Google Cloud Marketplace Your Growth Engine for 2026" event

When the leader of Google Cloud Marketplace records a personal invite from the floor of NVIDIA GTC — that tells you where the momentum is heading.

Dai Vu, Managing Director of Google Cloud Marketplace, recorded this invite to our upcoming event (March 24) from the floor of GTC in San Jose, the biggest AI infrastructure event of the year.

Here’s what stood out:

• Jensen Huang boldly projected the AI infrastructure market will hit $1 trillion by 2027 — double the previous estimate

His framing: this isn’t a bubble, it’s a once-in-a-century transition.

• Dai’s question: once all that AI infrastructure is built out, how do you monetize and grow?

• That’s exactly what he’ll cover in his keynote on March 24 — how Google Cloud Marketplace is becoming the growth engine for partners and ISVs in this new AI era.

This is our second annual Google Cloud Marketplace event with Dai keynoting.

A lot has changed since last year — GCP revenue from partner-built AI solutions grew ~300%, its cloud commitments jumped to $240B, and its revenue grew 48% YoY last quarter.

GCP new customer velocity doubled in Q4 vs Q1 and $1B+ customer deals in 2025 exceeded the previous 3 years combined.

Dai will share where Marketplace is heading next, what’s working for partners who are scaling, and how AI and co-sell motions are evolving in 2026.

Join our online event tomorrow, March 24 at 9-11.30 am PT.

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Tomorrow: The Final 5 Speakers Joining Our GCP Marketplace Event (400 Leaders Already In)

Our “Google Cloud Marketplace: Your Growth Engine for 2026” event is tomorrow — here are the five outstanding speakers completing the lineup.

They join keynote speakers Jay McBain and Dai Vu, alongside panelists from Google Cloud, MongoDB, and TD SYNNEX.

These are the leaders behind some of the strongest numbers on GCP Marketplace right now — from $2B+ in marketplace sales to triple-digit growth in cloud marketplace to one of the first agentic AI solutions scaling on the platform.

Partner Ecosystem Panel

Munish Khetrapal — VP for Cloud Engagement, Palo Alto Networks

$2B+ in sales on Google Cloud Marketplace. 5 Google Cloud Partner of the Year awards in 2025 alone — including AI Security and Marketplace. No ISV has scaled harder on GCP Marketplace than Palo Alto Networks.

Munish leads cloud engagement at Palo Alto Networks — driving go-to-market strategy and building joint solutions that help customers securely accelerate adoption of multi-cloud infrastructure. Palo Alto Networks has 30+ listings on GCP Marketplace and 75 jointly engineered solution integrations with GCP.

The next wave of marketplace growth will come from knowing where channel partners create leverage, how to use MCPO effectively, and how to turn cloud commitments into faster, larger, more repeatable deals. That’s what we’ll break down with Munish.

Michael Peters — Vice President, Partners and Alliances, Optiv

Triple-digit growth in cloud marketplace business. 2025 Google Cloud Security Partner of the Year for North America. And one of the first to adopt Google Cloud MCPO at scale.

Under Mike’s leadership, Optiv has driven triple-digit growth in their cloud marketplace business while standing up new secure-use-of-AI motions that unlock AI compute in a security-forward way. Optiv operates at impressive scale: $3.8B+ in cybersecurity sales in 2025, 73% of the Fortune 100 as clients.

Few companies see more of the enterprise security buying landscape — and that’s what makes Mike’s insights on how channel and marketplace are converging so valuable.

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Co-Sell & Joint GTM Panel

John Jahnke — CEO, Tackle.io

28% of companies are planning new Google Cloud Marketplace listings in 2026 — the strongest growth momentum of any hyperscaler. That’s from Tackle’s latest State of Cloud GTM report, and the leader behind that data is joining our panel.

Tackle (now part of AppDirect) essentially invented the Cloud GTM category in 2016 — before “cloud marketplace” was even a recognized channel. Today they process $1B in transactions per month, supporting 500+ ISVs like Salesforce, CrowdStrike, HashiCorp and GitLab.

John will cover what it takes to earn hyperscaler attention, accelerate co-sell, and how agentic AI is changing the game.

Russell Efird — Senior Director, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Quantum Metric

~60% of net-new revenue influenced by Google Cloud. A quarter of all revenue through GCP Marketplace. And one of the first Agentic AI solutions already scaling revenue on GCP Marketplace.

Under Russell’s leadership, Quantum Metric grew from one of the first ISVs on GCP Marketplace to a top performer in co-sell pipeline — and one of the first to scale an agentic AI solution through Marketplace.

Russell will break down how to scale agentic AI solutions through Google Cloud Marketplace and how to turn a Google Cloud partnership into repeatable revenue growth driver.

Marketplace Operations Playbook

Katie Landaal — Senior AVP, Strategic Alliances, ZoomInfo

$GTM. That’s ZoomInfo’s actual NASDAQ ticker. A $1.25B/year public company literally renamed itself after go-to-market. That tells you how central GTM has become as a category — and how much is at stake in getting marketplace operations right.

ZoomInfo won two Google Cloud Partner of the Year awards: Technology: Data Provider and Technology: Marketplace Business Application. Google Cloud also named ZoomInfo one of the business applications in GCP Marketplace driving the most significant business impact for joint customers across multiple regions.

Katie leads ZoomInfo’s global alliances and ecosystem strategy. Over 5+ years at the company, she has helped build and scale a $150M+ partner revenue ecosystem.

In our Marketplace Operations Playbook session, we’ll get into the operational side of scaling on GCP Marketplace — how Cloud GTM connects into company operations and RevOps, how to scale co-sell and boost it with automation, and how to turn Marketplace into a repeatable revenue driver.

All-Star Lineup — March 24, 9–11:30 AM PT:

• Keynote from Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Omdia

• Keynote from Dai Vu, Managing Director of Google Cloud Marketplace

• Co-Sell & Joint GTM Panel: Google Cloud + leaders from MongoDB, Tackle.io, and Quantum Metric

• Partner Ecosystem Panel: Google Cloud + leaders from Palo Alto Networks ($2B+ in GCP Marketplace sales), TD SYNNEX, and Optiv

• Marketplace Operations Playbook: Deep dive on automation, private offers, and operational excellence with ZoomInfo and Tackle

Nearly 400 leaders are already registered. Join them tomorrow.

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What Jensen Huang Revealed About Winning Hyperscaler Partnerships

60% of NVIDIA’s business now comes from top 5 hyperscalers. At GTC Jensen Huang just showed what clouds actually want from strategic partners.

At GTC last week, Jensen Huang said NVIDIA now sees at least $1T of AI infrastructure demand through 2027. With 60% of it from hyperscalers, it’s a massive number.

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But the part alliance leaders should pay attention to is the mechanism underneath it.

Jensen said NVIDIA doesn’t just sell infrastructure into the clouds. He said the company works with “a large ecosystem of AI natives” it can “bring to the clouds” so that massive compute investments get consumed.

The pitch is not just buy our chips.

It is also: we help drive the workloads, companies, and ecosystem activity that make those cloud investments more valuable.

That’s the part alliance leaders should study.

Because it reveals what hyperscalers really value in a strategic partner:

• Partners that create customer demand

• Partners that accelerate workload consumption

• Partners that attract more ecosystem activity onto the platform

NVIDIA does all three.

In other words: the strongest partners are not just “integrated” with the cloud. They help the cloud win.

That’s what makes this relevant beyond NVIDIA itself.

Most companies are obviously not NVIDIA. But the underlying playbook is still highly transferable:

When you pitch a hyperscaler, don’t just explain why your product is great.

This is where many alliance teams undersell themselves.

They pitch features. They pitch why their company matters.

Explain why your company helps the cloud win.

• Why does your presence make their platform more valuable?

• Why does it help cloud sellers drive more consumption?

• Why does it help customers deploy faster?

• Why does it attract more partners and use cases around your category?

That’s one reason marketplace, co-sell, and ecosystem strategy are converging so fast.

The best partners are no longer just vendors. They are becoming demand creators, adoption accelerators, and ecosystem magnets for the cloud.

That may be the most important part of the NVIDIA story for alliance leaders.

When you present to cloud sellers, are you selling your product — or selling how you help the cloud win?

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In this week’s edition:

• Jay McBain on why cybersecurity, agentic AI, and marketplaces are converging — and why Google Cloud may be uniquely positioned. Plus his special invite to our March 24 event

• How to make Marketplace native to your sales team: the MEDDPICC mapping that turned one AI company’s sellers into co-sell advocates

• MongoDB (6X Google Cloud Partner of the Year), TD SYNNEX, and Google Cloud leaders — meet 4 standout operators joining our biggest GCP Marketplace event yet

• $553B in customer commits. 531% multicloud database growth. Oracle just showed that partner-led AI demand is very real.

A Special Invite from Jay McBain to Our Google Cloud Marketplace Event (March 24)

We caught up with Jay McBain last week ahead of our upcoming event: Google Cloud Marketplace: Your Growth Engine for 2026. Here’s what he’s tracking right now — and what he’ll cover in his keynote:

• The Wiz acquisition ($32B) isn’t just a cybersecurity play — it has ecosystem ramifications for every GCP partner

• Cybersecurity has been one of the most successful categories on cloud marketplaces. Palo Alto alone has done billions through GCP Marketplace

• Agentic AI is creating a “wild west” moment that mirrors the early days of SaaS and shadow IT — but the partner AI opportunity is compounding at 35%+ CAGR through 2030

• Google Cloud is the only full-stack AI player with 100% partner commitment. Jay: “Really, really well set up with what they’ve done around partnering”

• Marketplace is where all of this converges — cybersecurity, agentic AI, partner-led distribution

Join our event on March 24 to hear from Jay on the latest trends and partner opportunities in cloud marketplaces and AI.

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Make Marketplace MEDDPICC-native: Translate Co-sell into Sellers’ Normal Process

CRO of a fast-growing AI company told me recently: once his sellers saw that Marketplace + co-sell can strengthen every part of MEDDPICC, there was no going back.

Problem:

Alliance teams often introduce Marketplace + co-sell as a separate track: new forms, new steps, new “ask alliances.”

So even when customers can buy through Marketplace, the default path wins: the one sellers already know.

Unlock:

Translate Marketplace + co-sell into MEDDPICC so sellers feel like they’re running their usual process — with more leverage.

Here’s the mapping & slides you can use:

Metrics - M

Quantify the value of your ISV solution and the advantages of buying via marketplaces (using cloud commits, consolidated billing, less admin overhead for the customer’s finance team).

For sellers, marketplaces can unlock faster growth and deployment.

But don’t just say “faster.” Use hard industry/internal data.

Economic Buyer - E

Your champion might be in the business unit, but the budget authority often sits elsewhere.

Use hyperscaler reach to understand the buyer’s commercial strategy, cloud commits, and who owns them. Clouds can also help you access higher levels (CIO/CTO) when the case is clear.

Decision Criteria - D

Understand how your prospect reviews, shortlists, and finalizes purchases. Collaborate with cloud teams to align decision criteria with Marketplace benefits.

Example: if “cost reduction” is a key criterion (and the customer has commits), frame the deal not as new spend, but as a way to use commits that may otherwise go unused.

Decision Process - D

Teams lose time because they map the approval chain too late.

Co-sell helps here: hyperscalers see customer buying patterns across accounts and can guide sellers through the internal decision-making maze.

When you engage cloud teams, share your status and specific requests, not generic “any help is appreciated.”

Paper Process - P

Marketplace workflows can bypass traditional signature delays and grant user access faster. Push for standard marketplace agreements to cut redlines and shorten legal cycles.

Educate sellers to identify who can accept private offers early, not at the last moment.

Identify Pain - I

Work backwards from the customer’s goals: AI, modernization, migration to understand how your solution fits best.

Co-sell can help connect your solution to cloud and AI priorities and frame the pain in customer’s language

Champion - C

When you cultivate champions inside the customer org, use hyperscalers to map stakeholders in areas like Security, Apps, AI, Procurement to strengthen internal support.

If your champion goes silent, cloud sellers can sometimes help to re-engage the account from a different angle.

Competition - C

When competitors go direct, Marketplace gives a structural edge: faster procurement, commit flexibility, cloud seller backing. Turn this route-to-market into a moat.

Could your sellers explain how Marketplace fits in MEDDPICC today?

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Meet the Leaders Joining Our Biggest GCP Marketplace Event Yet

Google Cloud’s marketplace is growing triple digits YoY. Their customer commits jumped to $240B. Revenue from partner-built AI solutions grew ~300% last year.

The opportunity is obvious. The playbook is not.

Most ISVs know they should be scaling on GCP Marketplace. Fewer know how co-sell actually works inside Google, how channel-led deals are closing, or what the top partners are doing differently. We went and got the people who can answer that.

Last week we announced our two keynotes — Jay McBain (Chief Analyst, Omdia) and Dai Vu (Managing Director, Google Cloud Marketplace). This week, meet the four panelists who’ll turn those macro trends into tactics you can use.

Co-Sell & Joint GTM Panel

Kevin Goodspeed — Head of Startups & Vertical ISV Business Development, Google Cloud Marketplace

9 of the top 10 AI labs chose Google Cloud as their infrastructure. The leader helping the next wave of startups scale on GCP Marketplace is joining our March 24 event.

Kevin sits at the intersection of two worlds. At Google Cloud, he works across ISVs and the field to drive growth on GCP Marketplace — from startups to enterprise, across every software category.

At CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent VC arm, he advises growth-stage portfolio companies on Marketplace onboarding, co-sell and growth. Kevin helps CapitalG’s highest-conviction bets scale through GCP Marketplace.

Few people have a better view of what it takes to move from “great product” to repeatable marketplace GTM.

Kevin has spent 7 years in cloud marketplaces. He knows the growth patterns that actually help ISVs break through and scale revenue on GCP Marketplace.

In his panel, Kevin will break down how SaaS businesses stand out on GCP Marketplace—and the co-sell and GTM strategies working with Google Cloud right now.

John Murray — Director Partner Programs, MongoDB

MongoDB is 6X consecutive Google Cloud Partner of the Year, including 2025 Partner of the Year for Data & Analytics – Marketplace.

MongoDB’s growth is one of the strongest examples of scaling through cloud marketplaces. Last quarter, their cloud database Atlas crossed the $2B run rate, growing an impressive 29% YoY.

John Murray leads MongoDB’s global cloud partner strategy with a focus on Google Cloud Marketplace, supporting thousands of customers globally.

He builds programs that make it easier for customers to adopt MongoDB Atlas on cloud marketplaces, align co-sell motions, and enable partners to build joint solutions for shared customers. He’s passionate about creating GTM strategies that turn strategic alliances into repeatable, revenue-generating motions.

John will break down how MongoDB uses PAYG strategy and co-sell to drive both deal volume and value — and what it takes to build a partner motion that actually scales on GCP Marketplace.

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Partner Ecosystem Panel

Shamsah Hirani — Senior ISV and Channel Strategic Initiatives Manager, Google Cloud

Revenue from AI solutions built by Google Cloud partners grew ~300% last year. Commitments from their top 15 software partners grew 16X+. By next year, 5 out of 10 marketplace deals will be led by channel partners (Omdia). But many ISVs and channel partners are still figuring out how to work and scale on marketplaces together.

That’s exactly what this panel will break down.

Shamsah leads ISV and Channel Strategic Initiatives at Google Cloud Marketplace. Her role connects the two sides of this converging motion — software vendors and channel partners scaling together on GCP Marketplace.

Before Google Cloud, Shamsah held senior alliance and business development roles at AWS, Teradata, and Microsoft, where she launched and scaled industry-leading initiatives for ISVs and channel partners. Few people have operated across this many cloud ecosystems at this level.

Shamsah and the panel will get into the specifics — how ISVs actually unlock growth through channel on GCP Marketplace, where resellers, distributors and service partners fit, and how to operationalize Google Cloud’s MCPO at scale.

Ben Stockler — Business Development Manager, Cloud Marketplace, TD SYNNEX

30,000+ partners. 1,000+ software vendors. Triple-digit growth in marketplace private offers.

TD SYNNEX is turning cloud marketplaces into a strategic growth lever for partners — and the leader behind it is joining our panel.

TD SYNNEX is a Google Cloud Premier Partner and 2025 Google Cloud Partner Award winner. They accelerate cloud marketplace growth for ISVs and channel partners by combining marketplace expertise, operational support, and scalable routes to market.

Under Ben’s leadership, the TD SYNNEX Cloud Marketplace team has been driving triple-digit YoY growth in Hyperscaler Private Offers. They launched a dedicated Private Offer Deal Desk, giving partners immediate access to thousands of Google Cloud Marketplace products to build and transact complete, multi-vendor software solutions.

On the operational side, TD SYNNEX orchestrates a streamlined, support-backed flow for Google Cloud Marketplace Channel Private Offers (MCPO) — covering the entire lifecycle from quoting and acceptance to invoicing and payment. Through the StreamOne platform, ISVs get access to 30,000+ global partners — extending marketplace reach far beyond what any vendor can build through direct motions alone.

Ben will share what’s working right now for channel-led marketplace growth — private offers, co-sell alignment, and how partners can turn cloud commitments into pipeline.

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All-Star Lineup

Our “Google Cloud Marketplace: Your Growth Engine for 2026” event also features:

• Keynote: Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Omdia

• Keynote: Dai Vu, Managing Director of Google Cloud Marketplace

• Co-Sell & Joint GTM Panel: Google Cloud + leaders from MongoDB, Tackle.io, and Quantum Metric on co-sell strategies that scale

• Partner Ecosystem Panel: Google Cloud + leaders from Palo Alto Networks ($2B+ in GCP Marketplace sales), TD SYNNEX, and Optiv on channel acceleration and ecosystem growth

• Marketplace Operations Playbook: Deep dive on automation, private offers, and operational excellence with ZoomInfo and Tackle

📅 Join us on March 24, 9–11:30 AM PT

In just 2.5 hours, 10+ leaders will break down how to turn Google Cloud Marketplace into your growth engine for 2026

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Thanks to our Ecosystem partner for supporting this event:

TD SYNNEX accelerates cloud marketplace growth for ISVs and channel partners by combining marketplace expertise, operational support, and scalable routes to market.

Their Cloud Marketplace team helps partners simplify procurement, attach services, and maximize access to committed cloud spend. A Google Cloud Premier Partner and 2025 Google Cloud Partner Award winner, they help vendors expand globally and enable partners to win more software opportunities faster.

Oracle’s Q3: The $553B Proof That Partner-Led AI Demand is Real

$553B customer commits. 531% multicloud database growth. 243% AI infra growth. Oracle just showed what partner-led AI-cloud growth really looks like.

For months, Wall Street questioned whether this was real demand or just AI narrative. Oracle’s last quarter performance gave a clear answer.

Oracle’s organic revenue and non-GAAP EPS both grew 20%+ for the first time since 2009. But the real signal sits below the headline beat.

Oracle now has two engines accelerating at once:

1️⃣ High-margin multicloud database business powered by hyperscaler partnerships

Revenue grew 531% YoY. CEO Clay McGork put the reason plainly:

“We created our multicloud partnerships with first Microsoft, then Google, and finally Amazon.... Those partnerships unlock an enormous backlog of demand.”

That demand is now being activated at scale with all 3 clouds.

• 33 regions live with Microsoft

• 14 with Google

• AWS scaling from 2 live regions at the start of Q3 to 8 by quarter-end, with 22 expected by the end of Q4

The economics make the story stronger too. Oracle said the multicloud database business runs at 60-80% margins, vs 32% gross margin on AI capacity delivered in Q3.

2️⃣ AI infrastructure business creating enormous backlog and pulling the rest of the stack with it

AI infra revenue grew 243% YoY. Oracle tied the $553B RPO directly to that demand: “Demand for AI infrastructure, both GPU and CPU, continues to exceed supply.”

The operating model matters here.

Oracle secured 10+ GW of data center capacity over 3 years, with 90%+ funded through partners. It also signed $29B in contracts using bring-your-own-hardware and upfront payment models — scaling without shouldering the capital burden alone.

But infrastructure is the wedge, not the endpoint.

Mike Sicilia said these deals now drive “ecosystem automation” conversations across OCI, database, applications, and industry suites. AI opens the door — then the full stack walks through it.

3️⃣ The next layer: agents

Oracle already has 1,000+ AI agents embedded across its applications. Larry Ellison made clear they will not build every vertical agent: “We do not think we can build all the application agents for a banking system or a health care system. A lot of our partners are going to do that.”

This also explains Oracle’s hard push back on the SaaS apocalypse thesis.

Mike Cecilia: “I have not yet met a customer who tells me they are ready to give away their core banking system, their electronic health records... and some cobbling together of niche AI features are going to replace all of that overnight.”

Oracle’s view: AI makes complex, mission-critical SaaS more valuable — not less.

Takeaways for alliance leaders:

• AI infra may win the headline, but data and application layers follow and capture the better economics

• Agentic AI will create new partner surface area closest to mission-critical data and workflows

Is Oracle becoming the most partnership-focused growth story in enterprise tech?

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In this week’s edition:

• Okta hit ~$750M in TCV on AWS Marketplace in a single year — with Cloud GTM growing ~4X faster than total revenue. Partners were in 18 of its top 20 deals. The playbook behind it.

• CrowdStrike crossed ~$1.5B on AWS Marketplace last year, still growing ~50% YoY. Then Satya Nadella joined George Kurtz to address CrowdStrike’s GTM team as it opened up on Microsoft marketplace. Co-opetition at its most explicit.

• Anthropic just launched Claude Marketplace — turning AI commits into a software distribution channel. The same mechanic hyperscalers used to reshape SaaS buying, now one layer higher in the stack.

But before we dive in:

📅 March 24: Google Cloud Marketplace — Your Growth Engine for 2026

$240B in Google Cloud commits. Triple-digit GCP marketplace growth YoY.
In 2 weeks, Jay McBain (Chief Analyst, Omdia) and Dai Vu (Managing Director, Google Cloud Marketplace) are keynoting our biggest GCP online event of the year — alongside leaders from Palo Alto Networks, MongoDB, Optiv and more.

Save Your Spot

Now, let’s dive in.

Okta Hit $750M on AWS Marketplace/ year. Partners in 18/20 Top Deals

Okta closed ~$750M in TCV on AWS Marketplace last year growing 45%+ YoY.

Their total revenue grew 12%. Marketplace grew ~4X faster. That gap tells you a lot about where enterprise software distribution is heading.

Okta’s results just beat Wall Street expectations

Record $1.3B in total contract value (TCV) in Q4. New products ~30% of Q4 bookings. $3B+ in annual contract value. The growth engine is clearly firing.

But the real story is how they’re growing.

AWS Marketplace as a strategic GTM channel

Okta’s CFO called AWS Marketplace a “strategic go-to-market channel” as the company shared a ~$750M annual TCV milestone on AWS.

The context makes this even more striking.

Okta crossed $1B cumulative in AWS Marketplace sales in Jan 2025. Now they’re doing $750M in TCV in a single year.

That kind of acceleration at scale shows what’s possible when marketplace becomes embedded in how a company sells.

Partners in 18 of top 20 deals

Channel partners were involved in 18 of Okta’s top 20 Q4 deals.

And as Brett Tighe put it: “When our partners are involved, the average deal size is bigger, and the close rates improve.”

But here’s what’s interesting:

Okta is deliberately shifting more professional services work to global system integrators — a move that management said creates about a 1% impact on FY27 revenue guidance.

Why give up revenue?

Because customers need GSIs more than ever for change management around agentic AI, and Okta is betting that deeper GSI relationships will drive larger enterprise subscription growth over time.

It’s a classic long-term partner trade-off: sacrifice short-term PS dollars to build an ecosystem that can scale the platform.

Agentic is landing as enterprise deals

Okta’s new AI agent products had their first real bookings quarter.

Todd McKinnon, CEO, said Q4 “translated into real dollars and real bookings,” even if it is still small relative to the overall business.

Brett Tighe added that the deals “have been larger” because they are “more tilted toward larger companies.”

The company also said agentic identity should be accretive to growth in FY28 and FY29 — not a one-quarter story. For anyone evaluating AI-related investments, that helps clarify the timeline: plant seeds now, harvest in 12–24 months.

One more point worth noting

Despite all the industry talk about AI replacing people, Okta said it has been adding quota-carrying sales capacity starting in Q2, and continued through Q4 and into the current Q1.

When GTM is working — including partners and marketplace — you often need more people to capture the demand, not fewer.

3 lessons for alliance leaders:

• Treat marketplace as a strategic GTM system

• Pull SIs closer when the product requires real transformation and change management

• Build for agentic now, even if the revenue curve is still ahead

How are you seeing the marketplace and partner dynamics shift in your own organization?

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$240B in Google Cloud commits. Dai Vu and Jay McBain on what’s next for GCP Marketplace

$240B in Google Cloud commits. Triple-digit Google Cloud Marketplace growth YoY, billions in transaction value annually.

Managing Director leading GCP Marketplace is sharing what’s next. Joined by the top analyst who tracks where the market is going.

On March 24, Jay McBain (Chief Analyst at Omdia) and Dai Vu (Managing Director of Google Cloud Marketplace) are keynoting in our deep-dive online event “Google Cloud Marketplace: Your Growth Engine for 2026”.

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Jay McBain has been the most accurate analyst of marketplace growth.

His forecast has nearly doubled 3 times in under 3 years: $45B → $85B → $163B. Each time, the industry is catching up to where he already was.

Five signals from Jay I keep coming back to:

1. Marketplaces projected to reach $163B by 2030

2. By 2027, 5 out of 10 marketplace deals will be partner-led

3. For GCP partners: up to $7 of partner revenue for every $1 of GCP consumption

4. Partner opportunity around AI is on track to $267B by 2030

5. AI is shifting toward micro-consumption and outcome-based selling — and marketplaces are the distribution layer that makes it work

Dai Vu leads the global teams behind Google Cloud Marketplace — business development and P&L, partner and platform strategy, co-sell and field GTM models, partner engineering and enablement.

If you sell software through or alongside Google Cloud, Dai Vu is shaping how that entire market works.

Under his leadership, GCP Marketplace has been growing triple-digits YoY for multiple years, driving billions in transaction value annually.

Google Cloud momentum is hard to ignore

• Revenue grew an incredible 48% YoY last quarter

• Annual run rate crossed $70B

• Cloud commitments jumped to $240B — customer spend that can be used on its marketplace to buy ISV partner products

• Revenue from AI solutions built by partners grew ~300% YoY

• Commitments from Google’s top 15 software partners increased 16X+ YoY

His keynote on March 24 is the closest you’ll get to Google’s Marketplace strategy before Next season.

The all-star lineup (10+ speakers in 2.5h):

• Keynotes from Dai Vu and Jay McBain

• Leaders from Palo Alto Networks ($1.5B+ in GCP Marketplace sales), MongoDB (3X GCP Partner of the Year), Google Cloud, Optiv and more

• Two panels on co-sell strategy + channel ecosystem growth, plus a deep dive on marketplace ops & automation to scale revenue

📅 March 24, 9–11:30 AM PT

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This event is 4 weeks before Google Next — your chance to hear from the leaders shaping GCP Marketplace distribution, and lock in where to focus for 2026 before Next starts.

Thanks to our partner Tackle for supporting this event

Tackle (now part of AppDirect) is the Cloud GTM platform built to help software companies win in the cloud. As the category creator and leader in Cloud GTM, Tackle enables ISVs to list, transact, and scale through the hyperscalers.

Tackle streamlines every stage of the cloud marketplace journey with deep co-sell automations, private offer management, and real-time marketplace analytics.

Together with AppDirect’s global subscription commerce platform, Tackle is building the first truly unified solution for software companies to reach buyers across every route to market: cloud marketplaces, direct sales, and the channel.

Anthropic turns AI commits into software distribution

Anthropic just turned its committed AI spend into a new distribution channel for software. Meet Claude Marketplace — same idea as cloud marketplaces, different spelling.

But does Anthropic already have enough commits to make this work?

Anthropic just copied one of the most effective cloud GTM mechanics of the last decade

Claude Marketplace lets enterprises buy partner software against a share of their existing Anthropic commitments, with Anthropic handling all invoicing.

GitLab, Lovable, Replit, and Snowflake are already listed.

The implications are significant.

For 5+ years, AWS, Microsoft, and Google have taught the market that pre-committed budget can become a growth engine for third-party software.

They used commits to remove vendor friction, speed up procurement, and make SaaS easier to buy — while accelerating their own cloud consumption.

Anthropic is now applying that same mechanic one layer higher in the stack.

Claude as a mini-ecosystem

This potentially changes Anthropic’s role. It’s becoming an orchestrator around Claude — for budgets and 3rd-party software distribution.

This move also says something important:

The best application layer still matters. Anthropic’s own pitch is essentially: Claude is the intelligence layer, but Harvey, GitLab and others add the domain workflows, governance, and context enterprises need. A strong signal that frontier model vendors don’t think raw models alone will capture all enterprise value.

Anthropic also distributes Claude through Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, and Microsoft Foundry. Now it’s also running its own marketplace.

How much in Anthropic commits are we talking about?

Anthropic doesn’t disclose its backlog, but a few data points help estimate it:

• $19B annual revenue run-rate as of March ‘26 (Bloomberg)

• 500+ customers spending over $1M annually

• Business subscriptions to Claude Code up 4x since the start of 2026

So Anthropic’s commitment pool is likely already in the hundreds of millions to low single-digit billions.

Not hyperscaler-sized yet — AWS alone has $244B in backlog — but those commitments will grow fast if Anthropic continues on its recent trajectory.

The marketplace is one way to accelerate that growth and make the platform stickier. Plus, Anthropic is waiving transaction fees at launch to attract partners.

However, a big part of successful Cloud GTM with hyperscalers is co-sell — tapping into thousands of cloud sellers to bundle your product into large enterprise deals.

What this means for Cloud Alliance leaders:

• Multi-listing will matter more — across cloud and AI platforms

• AI commitments are becoming a new budget path. Route-to-budget is now as important as route-to-market

• If Anthropic adds real co-sell, or if agentic AI changes buyer behavior, this can get big fast

First, clouds turned commits into SaaS distribution. Now frontier AI vendors are doing the same.

Are you integrating marketplaces in your GTM strategy?

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CrowdStrike: $1.5B AWS Marketplace/ year, +50% YoY

CrowdStrike hit ~$1.5B in TCV on AWS Marketplace last year, growing ~50% YoY.

Even at scale, marketplace revenue isn’t slowing down. It’s compounding.

The company just reported a stellar year: $5.25B ARR (+24% YoY) and record net new ARR of ~$331M (+47% YoY).

But the marketplace + partnerships story was the real highlight.

1️⃣ AWS Marketplace is still accelerating at $1B+ scale

“This past year alone, we did nearly $1.5 billion of total contract value on the AWS Marketplace, growing nearly 50% year over year.” - George Kurtz, CEO

Cloud marketplaces can stay a high-growth route to market… even at >$1B/year scale.

This milestone makes CrowdStrike one of two ISVs that reached this scale (Snowflake crossed $2B/year on AWS MP).

2️⃣ Microsoft Marketplace + MACC eligibility = a real distribution unlock

“Satya Nadella and I spoke to CrowdStrike’s go-to-market team together.

We are now open for business on the Microsoft marketplace, and customers can use their Microsoft Azure consumption commitment dollars on Falcon.

This is a watershed moment…”

3 takeaways:

1. Executive alignment is explicit (Satya + George with the GTM team).

2. Marketplace is positioned as the default path to burn committed cloud spend.

3. For a company that used to directly compete with Microsoft in security, this is a striking co-opetition move

Context: After mastering AWS Marketplace, CrowdStrike went from 0→$150M on Google Cloud Marketplace in its first year (FY25). Now they’re bringing that playbook to Azure to capture MACCs.

3️⃣ MSSPs are becoming the second growth engine alongside marketplaces

“In just over three years, we have gone from a sub-$100 million MSSP business to more than $1.3 billion…”

• Marketplaces + services partners reinforce each other:

• Commits drive faster buys. MSSPs drive faster outcomes.

That growth spans partners like Kroll, Pax8, and NinjaOne — and shows how quickly a services-led route to market can scale.

4️⃣ The best answer to “AI and hyperscalers will compete with you”

“Over the years, as cloud was maturing… I heard a lot about the hyperscalers actually providing all the security services.

Well, that did not happen… we transact billions through these platforms, and they are a great partner… So we see the same thing happening with what I call AI hyperscalers.”

The CEO framing is unambiguous:

“In summary, we did not just have a great partner year, we built an ecosystem to win the next decade.”

Lessons for Cloud GTM leaders:

• Marketplace compounds even at scale. $1.5B and still ~50% YoY. Plan for it as a key channel, not a side bet.

• Co-opetition is the new normal. CrowdStrike competes with Microsoft in security and sells through their marketplace.

• Pair marketplace motion with partners who can deliver outcomes fast.

• Multi-cloud marketplace expertise transfers: master one hyperscaler, then replicate fast on others.

How is your Cloud GTM strategy changing your sales conversations?

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s edition:

• AvePoint grew SaaS revenue 37% YoY in a market where many SaaS vendors are slowing. Their fastest-growing motion? Channel now drives 57% of ARR

• Google Cloud commits jumped $155B → $240B in Q4 alone. Revenue from partner-built AI solutions grew ~300% YoY. Dai Vu, who runs GCP Marketplace, joins our event on March 24 to share what's next for partners.

• 75% of enterprises want service providers to build their key Agentic AI use cases. Not internal teams. Partners. C-suite is also 2X+ more likely than mid-management to buy from partners.

• Everyone says you need CEO buy-in for partnerships. Workiva’s CEO just showed what it actually looks like — and it’s more deliberate than most realize.

But first — if you sell through or alongside Google Cloud, don’t miss our biggest GCP online event of 2026:

Google Cloud Marketplace: Your Growth Engine for 2026 (March 24)

Dai Vu, Managing Director leading Google Cloud Marketplace, will share where Marketplace is heading next, what’s working for partners who are scaling, and how AI and co-sell motions are evolving in 2026. He’ll be joined by Jay McBain (Omdia), leaders from Palo Alto Networks, MongoDB, Optiv, Tackle and more. 10+ speakers. 2.5 hours.

Save Your Spot

Now, let’s dive in.

37% SaaS growth. 57% channel. AvePoint’s GTM playbook

AvePoint grew SaaS revenue 37% YoY to $88.9M in a market where many SaaS vendors are slowing.

Their fastest-growing motion? Channel now drives 57% of ARR

AvePoint builds data governance + protection software used by 28,604 customers across cloud platforms.

They hit $416.8M ARR (+27% YoY), with RPO at $508M (+36% YoY).

These are standout numbers, especially as market debates if AI will disrupt SaaS.

But the real story is how they sell.

Their GTM breakdown

• Enterprise (52% of ARR): primarily direct sales

• Mid-market (28%): increasingly channel-led

• SMB (20%): primarily through channel/MSPs

Channel growth in the last 3 years tells the story:

• Channel ARR share: 47% (2022) → 57% (2025)

• Channel partners: 3,403 → 5,859

• MSP ARR: $19M → $62M (48% CAGR)

CEO Dr. Tianyi Jiang (TJ) last week:

“Our channel, focusing on MSPs, still our fastest-growing segment, unlocking SMB and mid-market. We have not seen slowdown in SMB, as some other vendors have seen.”

Channel isn’t just scale — it’s operating efficiency

Sales & marketing as % of revenue fell from 34.3% in FY24 to 31% in Q4 (and 32% for FY25).

AvePoint attributes this directly to scaling the channel strategy. They also hit Rule of 46 (ARR growth + operating margin), up from Rule of 31 two years ago.

Migration is the partner “tip of the spear”

AvePoint deliberately pushes services revenue to partners on migration projects, then retains the recurring software revenue on day-two governance, protection, and cost control.

Textbook land-and-expand through channel.

The hyperscaler GTM is expanding

AvePoint sells through Microsoft, Google Cloud, and AWS marketplaces, maintains strategic partnerships with all three clouds, and is moving beyond Microsoft 365 into multi-cloud workload governance across compute infrastructure.

They also signed a $340M five-year IT services consumption commitment (2026-2030) — a signal of how deeply embedded they are in hyperscaler economics.

AI doesn’t reduce their customer needs — it amplifies them

LLMs don’t eliminate security, backup, compliance, and policy control. They raise the stakes.

AvePoint is leaning into that with agent control / AI governance and pricing that mirrors hyperscaler economics: a blend of seat + consumption.

3 takeaways for alliance leaders:

1. Map partner strategy by customer segment. Clarity on “who sells to whom” prevents conflict and lets each motion scale.

2. Channel drives margin improvement, not just reach. Track S&M % of revenue as your channel matures — it’s the cleanest proof point for your CFO.

3. Treat hyperscalers as ecosystem opportunities for GTM: align marketplace procurement + co-sell + partner delivery into one motion

What’s your experience — does driving partners revenue accelerate customer adoption and stickiness?

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Dai Vu, Who Leads Google Cloud Marketplace, Keynotes Our Biggest GCP Event of 2026

Google Cloud customer commits jumped $155B → $240B in Q4 alone. Revenue from partner-built AI solutions grew ~300% YoY.

Dai Vu, Managing Director leading their Marketplace, will share what’s next in our biggest GCP event of 2026.

If you sell software through or alongside Google Cloud, Dai Vu is shaping how that entire market works.

His keynote in our GCP online event on March 24 is the closest you’ll get to Google’s Marketplace strategy before Next season.

Dai Vu leads the global teams behind Google Cloud Marketplace — business development and P&L, partner and platform strategy, co-sell and field GTM models, partner engineering and enablement.

Under his leadership, GCP Marketplace has been growing triple-digits YoY for multiple years, driving billions in transaction value annually.

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This will be Dai Vu second keynote at our event. A lot has changed since last year.

Google Cloud momentum is hard to ignore

• Revenue grew incredible 48% YoY last quarter

• Annual run rate crossed $70B

• Cloud commitments (RPO) jumped to $240B — committed customer spend that can be used on its marketplace to buy ISV partner products

On the partner side, the signals are even more striking

• Revenue from AI solutions built by partners grew nearly 300% YoY

• Commitments from Google’s top 15 software partners increased 16X+ YoY

Customer adoption is impressive

• New customer velocity doubled in Q4 vs Q1

• $1B+ customer deals in 2025 exceeded the previous 3 years combined

• Existing customers are outpacing initial commitments by 30%+

• ~75% of Google Cloud customers have used their vertically optimized AI – from chips, to models, to AI platforms, and enterprise AI agents

The ecosystem around Google Cloud is expanding fast — and the co-sell + marketplace math is changing for every ISV and partner on the platform.

Dai will share where Marketplace is heading next, what’s working for partners who are scaling, and how AI and co-sell motions are evolving in 2026.

The all-star lineup joining him

• Jay McBain, Chief Analyst at Omdia — the most accurate voice on cloud marketplaces, who forecasted $85B marketplace opportunity years before the industry caught up. Jay sees marketplaces reaching $163B by 2030 with 59% of deals flowing through channel partners

• Leaders from Palo Alto Networks ($2B+ in GCP Marketplace sales), MongoDB (3X GCP Partner of the Year), Google Cloud, Optiv, Tackle and more

• Two panels on co-sell strategy and channel ecosystem growth, plus operations deep dive focused on marketplace automations and scaling revenue efficiently

• 10+ speakers. 2.5 hours. Entirely free.

This event is just 4 weeks before Google Cloud Next. This is your chance to learn directly from the people leading the distribution on GCP marketplace platform — and know exactly where to focus in 2026 before the big Next announcements start.

March 24, 9:00–11:30 AM PT

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See you on March 24th.

Thanks to our partner Tackle for supporting this event

Tackle (now part of AppDirect) is the Cloud GTM platform built to help software companies win in the cloud. As the category creator and leader in Cloud GTM, Tackle enables ISVs to list, transact, and scale through the hyperscalers.

Tackle streamlines every stage of the cloud marketplace journey with deep co-sell automations, private offer management, and real-time marketplace analytics.

Together with AppDirect's global subscription commerce platform, Tackle is building the first truly unified solution for software companies to reach buyers across every route to market: cloud marketplaces, direct sales, and the channel.

C-Suite Is 2X+ More Likely to Buy & Deploy Agentic AI with Partners

75% of enterprises want service providers to build their key Agentic AI use cases. Not internal teams. Partners.

And C-suite is leading the charge, 2X+ more likely than mid-management to buy from partners.

Everyone’s asking the same question: will Agentic AI gut tech services revenue? BCG just surveyed 190+ execs on both sides - enterprise buyers and partners - and the data tells a very different story

This isn’t a shrinking market

BCG projects Agentic AI will unlock up to $200B in net new demand for tech services over the next 5 years (6–8% CAGR through 2030).

AI efficiency-led losses in traditional contracting are real but localized. The new value pools — building, deploying, running, and governing AI agents — are much larger for partners to grasp.

Winning service partners are orchestrating ecosystems

“More than 90% of providers report delivering Agentic engagements leveraging ecosystem partners. The competitive advantage lies in orchestrating these partnerships to accelerate deployment, standardize patterns, and scale proven use cases.”

Winning service partners aren’t just reselling or implementing. They are orchestrating multi-partner ecosystems — hyperscalers, SaaS platforms, and emerging agentic-native players — into repeatable, scalable deployments.

What’s the state of Agentic AI deployment by enterprises right now?

• 40%+ of large enterprises are already scaling Agentic AI beyond pilots. Banking, financial services, and insurance are leading. “2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year” from experimentation to enterprise-wide deployment.

• Agentic AI investment has grown 60%+ annually since 2023, with over 55% flowing into agent platforms and orchestration layers — the infrastructure that hyperscalers and their partners are building together.

• Agentic components now show up in 40%+ of enterprise sourcing cycles across IT applications, BPO, and CX services.

Pricing model mismatch favors marketplaces

One gap remains: >70% of enterprise buyers want output- or outcome-linked pricing for agentic services. Yet ~60% of providers still contract on time-and-materials or fixed-price.

It seems cloud marketplaces — with consumption-based and usage-linked commercial models — are naturally positioned to close this gap.

Three lessons for alliance leaders:

1. Treat Agentic AI as a new growth category to capture WITH your ecosystem — new offers, partners, new routes to market — not just a margin or efficiency play

2. The competitive edge isn’t building agents alone. It’s orchestrating hyperscaler, ISV, and SI partnerships into packaged use cases that enterprises can deploy fast

3. The buyers who matter most — C-suite — are choosing partners over internal builds and are betting on ecosystems. Your sales and marketplace motions should match those executive-level buying patterns

What’s your take — is Agentic AI a threat to existing revenue, or an expansion of your TAM?

Source: Research.

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CEO Buy-In for Partnerships: “I only highlight wins that involve our partners”

Everyone says you need CEO buy-in for partnerships.

Workiva’s CEO just showed what it actually looks like — and it’s more deliberate than most realize.

Last week I published an analysis of Workiva’s strategy. They’re growing 21% YoY with partner-driven GTM.

Every single one of the 14 enterprise deals their CEO mentioned in Q4 earnings call involved a partner — co-sold, sourced, or implemented.

The post got traction. But what happened next was even more interesting.

Workiva’s CEO Julie Iskow commented directly:

“It wasn’t just 14 out of 14 in our recent earnings. Every earnings call I only highlight wins that involve our partners. It’s intentional. Our high-performing partner ecosystem is key (and vital) to our success”

Let that sink in.

The CEO of a public company approaching $1B in revenue deliberately chooses to ONLY spotlight partner-involved wins on the most visible public stage of the quarter.

This is not a partnership slide in a board deck.

This is the CEO using the earnings call — the moment when Wall Street, customers, and employees are all listening — to send an unmistakable signal about what matters.

And signals like that cascade

When a CEO consistently highlights partners publicly, it shapes:

• how CROs build sales motions

• how sellers prioritize co-sell

• how marketing tells the story

• how product thinks about ecosystem leverage

• how the company allocates resources

Example:

Workiva new CRO, Michael Pinto (ex-AWS and Databricks), was brought in with an explicit mandate to strengthen their partner ecosystem. That hire doesn’t happen without top-down commitment.

Julie also added a second point most partnership narratives miss:

“Our partners don’t just “help us close deals, find opportunities and own implementations”. They also help our customers get more value from our platform ... and ultimately other solutions (a win-win-win: for our partners, our customers and Workiva).”

This framing matters.

At Workiva, partners aren’t just a distribution channel — they’re customer success drivers. And In the AI era, that distinction is everything: partner-led implementations and services accelerate time-to-value, increase adoption, and unlock expansion — making outcomes stickier and relationships harder to unwind.

The takeaway: C-suite commitment to partners isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s one of the highest-leverage inputs into ecosystem-led growth.

3 things alliance leaders can take from this:

1. CEO buy-in isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a repeated, visible signal — every quarter, every earnings call, every internal moment.

2. Ecosystem depth is the moat in the AI era. Partners who implement, enable, and expand your product drive stickiness that features alone rarely do.

3. Watch what executives highlight publicly, not just internally. Earnings calls, keynotes, and analyst days reveal real priorities.

Do partners show up in your company’s most visible internal and external narratives?

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s newsletter:

• Workiva’s CEO highlighted 14 key enterprise wins. Every single one ran through a partner. The company is on track to cross $1B ARR with 21% growth — here’s how they’re running GTM so partners are the default, not the exception.

• A practical SPIF framework to get your reps transacting on marketplace in 90 days. Nicole Napiltonia (VP Alliances at TeamDynamix, ex-Barracuda) shares the exact phase-by-phase incentive structure — copy and adapt it.

• JFrog’s cloud engine is accelerating: cloud revenue hit $243M (+45% YoY) and now represents 46% of total — with “deeper marketplace partnerships” called out as a growth driver.

• Tomorrow: Michael Levy — the AWS Marketplace leader who helped scale Salesforce from $0 → $2B+ in marketplace revenue in 18 months — is joining our online workshop. He’ll share how top partners scale, and how AI is reshaping marketplace motions.

Before we dive in:

Join our free, tactical workshop tomorrow Feb 24, 9–10 AM PT — we’re covering the leadership alignment playbook for CEO/CFO buy-in, comp design, what top companies are doing differently in 2026 to scale marketplace revenue, and 5 templates you can implement this quarter.

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Workiva: 14/14 enterprise key wins ran via partners

Workiva is the type of SaaS company AI could disrupt. Reporting + compliance + governance is where AI is moving fast.

Yet they just delivered 21% growth YoY with partner-driven GTM. They are on track to cross $1B ARR.

What’s accelerating their growth?

One pattern jumped out in their recent earning call:

Every single enterprise deal the CEO highlighted involved a partner.

Not “most.” Not “the majority.”

All 14 out of 14 — co-sold, partner-sourced, and/or partner-implemented.

Big Four. Regional advisory firms. Technology platform partners.

This isn’t accidental. Workiva lists the partner ecosystem as a core growth pillar, and calls out 250+ advisory, technology, and service partners that extend reach and accelerate delivery.

What’s interesting is how partners show up in the mechanics of the wins:

• Co-sell + implemented by a Big Four firm” (repeated across multiple deals)

• Sourced and implemented by a regional advisory partner”

• Co-sell with a technology platform partner”

• Even competitive rip-and-replace deals (legacy GRC) routed through partners

In other words: partners aren’t just helping close deals. They’re finding opportunities and owning implementation at scale.

Workiva is also designing the business model around this leverage:

“We shifted lower-margin setup and consulting services to our partners.”

Translation: more delivery capacity through the ecosystem, better margins for Workiva, and more attach opportunity for services partners.

And they’re aligning leadership to it

Their new CRO, Michael Pinto (ex-AWS and Databricks), was brought in with an explicit mandate to “strengthen our partner ecosystem” and deepen Workiva’s position in the data ecosystem.

Now back to the AI disruption question

Workiva’s CEO Julie Iskow addressed the threat directly: “AI does not replace this foundation. It depends on it.”

Their bet: as more content becomes AI-generated, buyers care even more about data being trusted, traceable, defensible, and audit-ready — the “system of truth” layer underneath automation.

Cloud dependence + spend alignment

On the cloud infrastructure side, Workiva’s platform is built primarily on AWS.

They also disclosed $121.4 M in non-cancelable cloud infrastructure commitments through 2029 — a real signal of deep hyperscaler dependency and spend alignment.

3 lessons for alliance & marketplace leaders:

1. Design GTM so partner involvement is the default path to enterprise deals.

2. Treat services-to-partner migration as a scale + margin strategy (not just coverage).

3. Hire and promote partnership/cloud native sales leaders to bring cloud ecosystem instincts and accelerate co-sell/marketplace GTM

In your org, are partners involved in every enterprise deal — or only after the deal is already real?

Speaker Reveal: Michael Levy (AWS Marketplace) — How Top ISVs Scale Marketplace Revenue

$0 → $2B+ in AWS Marketplace revenue in 18 months. That’s how fast the Salesforce partnership scaled — and Michael Levy led the marketplace strategy behind it.

Many ISVs never get past seven figures on marketplace. Michael knows exactly why.

He’s joining our Feb 24 workshop to share what he’s learned about what separates marketplace revenue engines from strategies that go nowhere.

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Michael is a Senior Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace, where he leads feature launch and adoption — the team driving business outcomes on AWS marketplace for partners and customers.

He also designed the engagement framework that AWS uses to scale its most strategic marketplace partnerships into repeatable revenue.

What makes Michael’s perspective unique:

Michael works directly with top ISVs and technology partners to accelerate their GTM execution on AWS Marketplace.

He knows what “good” looks like from AWS’s vantage point — what gets support from AWS field teams, what gets prioritized, what stalls.

He also leads GTM strategy for AI agents and tools in AWS Marketplace. This means he’s at the intersection of the fastest-growing category in cloud and the fastest-growing procurement channel.

If you’re wondering how AI-native companies are approaching marketplace differently — or how traditional ISVs should position AI capabilities on marketplace — Michael is tracking this closer than almost anyone.

Before AWS, he spent 10+ years at Bloomberg LP building enterprise technology solutions for financial services.

That combination — strategic partner scaling, AI marketplace trends, product-led adoption, and deep enterprise experience — is exactly why his insight in this session is a must

Join us Feb 24, 9–10 AM PT as we break down:

What top companies are doing differently in 2026 to scale marketplace revenue

• The leadership alignment playbook that gets CRO and CFO buy-in

• How to structure your marketplace motion so sellers actually use it (not work around it)

• Partner engagement patterns: what AWS sees top partners do differently when they scale

• Templates you can implement this quarter

Michael Levy will be joined by:

• Drew Zurek — Senior Director, Global Cloud Marketplaces at Qlik (ex-AWS)

• Trunal Bhanse — CEO, Clazar

• Fabrizio Chen-Cataldo — Business Development & Partnerships, Supabase

• And myself

If you want to hear directly from the person who helped build one of the largest marketplace partnerships in AWS history — and who now shapes how AWS launches AI agents and scales marketplace features for partners — this is the session.

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Marketplace Incentive Framework: Fast-Track Sales Adoption

Many companies are still debating whether marketplace should be comp neutral. Top alliance leaders—backed by their exec team—have moved past that.

They design short-term SPIF programs to build the sales muscle fast.

Nicole Napiltonia just helped list TeamDynamix on Microsoft Marketplace. As VP of Alliances, she brings serious marketplace muscle — she previously scaled Barracuda into one of the top partners across hyperscalers.

She shared a practical incentive framework to fast-track marketplace adoption across the sales org. It over-rewards early deals on purpose — then tapers as the behavior becomes habit.

Here’s the structure (copy / adapt):

PHASE 1: “FIRST DEAL” (30–60 days)

1. First deal = overpaid on purpose

• $1,000–$2,000 SPIFF for the first marketplace deal per rep

• 2.0x quota credit (one-time)

• +10–20% commission kicker (stacked)

Use competition: reps don’t want to be the last one to get their first deal.

2. “Any deal counts” rule (lower the barrier)

• No minimum ACV (even $1–5K counts)

• New logo, expansion, renewal — all qualify

• Pilot / POC / partial workload qualifies

• Co-sell encouraged, not required

3. Fast money guarantee (speed builds trust)

• SPIFF paid within 14 days of close

• No revenue recognition dependency

• Simple validation: marketplace invoice submitted

• If finance can’t support this → reduce amount, not speed.

PHASE 2: “MOMENTUM MULTIPLIER” (next 2–3 deals)

1st deal → 2.0x quota

2nd deal → 1.5x quota

3rd deal → 1.25x quota

Then move to steady state plan.

Optional: cap at 90 days to create urgency.

PHASE 3: Leaderboard + social proof

Post every first deal win internally (rep name + deal size)

Leaderboard (first rep, second rep, etc.)

15-second exec shout out at all-hands for first-deal reps

Personal note from CEO/CRO for first deal reps

PHASE 4: “WHITE-GLOVE FIRST DEAL” support

Dedicated marketplace deal desk

Pre-approved contract language

Cloud AE intro offered automatically

One-page checklist: “How to close your first {hyperscaler} deal”

Reps should feel like the company wants them to try.

Early success metrics (don’t focus on revenue initially)

• Reps with ≥1 marketplace deal

• Time to first deal per rep

• % of pipeline now Marketplace-eligible

• Target: 50–60% of reps transact in the first 90 days.

Launch language (internal):

“For the next 60 days, your first Microsoft Marketplace deal earns a $1,000 SPIFF, 2x quota credit, and a commission accelerator — regardless of size. No minimum ACV. We are intentionally over-rewarding first deals to help everyone build momentum.”

Here is why I think it’s worth it:

Often hyperscaler MDF can offset the SPIF cost.

Every marketplace deal you close today compounds into access to billions of cloud budgets tomorrow. ROI on a short-term SPIF is hard to argue against.

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JFrog’s Cloud GTM Playbook: Marketplace as a Growth Lever

JFrog’s cloud business crossed $243M in revenue (up 45% YoY) driving overall growth to 24%.

Cloud partnerships and marketplace were called out as key growth drivers.

Here is what alliance leaders should study.

The shift to cloud is structural

Cloud now represents 46% of JFrog’s revenue, up from 39% a year ago.

Q4 cloud revenue: $70.2M = 48% of total

What stands out is how CEO Shlomi Ben Haim framed the drivers:

“We drove a higher volume of security deals in the cloud, strong new logo wins, and deeper marketplace partnerships.”

Marketplace partnerships named as one of the growth pillars.

JFrog further explained its Cloud GTM strategy:

“Specifically with public cloud providers, we believe that enhancing our partnership relationships and channel strategy may be a significant contributor to JFrog’s growth.”

This language signals board-level commitment.

JFrog is backing words with dollars

The company revealed $310M in commits “primarily for hosting services” - that’s JFrog’s own obligations to hyperscalers.

They will spend $56-73M per year on cloud infrastructure in 2026–2030. This is ~10% of their revenue locked into cloud spend.

CEO also noted they “strengthened partnerships with all major cloud providers, improved commercial terms, and established a stronger long-term growth margin strategy.”

When your own cloud spend crosses $300M in commitments, you earn negotiating power to improve commercial terms.

Buyer demand is shifting to multi-cloud (pulled by AI)

CEO noted: “Customer purchasing decisions changed in 2025, as CIOs were less focused on mega-cloud migration initiatives and instead increasingly emphasized building fit-to-purpose, hybrid, and multi-cloud architectures as they adopted new AI solutions.”

This signals that the era of “all-in on one cloud” may be giving way to multi-cloud by design.

Speaking of AI:

JFrog sees what the CEO calls a “tsunami of binaries” driven by coding agents. Millions of developers powered by millions of AI agents creating far more software artifacts. That consumption tailwind is real. JFrog is even preparing for a “business-to-agent” market where AI agents interact directly with its platform via MCP servers.

Three lessons for alliance leaders:

1. Cloud GTM is a board-level priority

JFrog describes its cloud partnerships as a growth strategy. That is the level of commitment that unlocks real resources and executive alignment.

2. Your own cloud spend is a partnership asset

Millions of commits give JFrog commercial leverage with hyperscalers. If you are spending tens of millions on cloud infrastructure, use that as a starting point for partnership negotiations.

3. Prepare for business-to-agent

If B2B shifts to B2A as CEO predicts, are your products and marketplace listings ready for agent-driven procurement?

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s newsletter:

• Dynatrace crossed $1B in AWS Marketplace sales — with ~90% channel transactions and 50%+ co-sell across all three clouds. The alliance playbook behind it is what matters.

• Who actually sources Marketplace deals? IDC data shows ISV AEs open 45% of opportunities — yet sellers who co-sell report 2X sales growth. Why the gap is the strategy.

• Speaker reveal: Drew Zurek (ex-AWS, trained hundreds of CROs on marketplace sales; now leads marketplaces at Qlik) joins our free Feb 24 workshop to share how top ISVs activate sellers to scale marketplace revenue.

• Partnerships hit board level: 79% of CEOs plan strategic alliances in 2026, up from 62% in 2025 — because transformation can’t wait and AI capability gaps are forcing ecosystem bets.

Before we dive in:

The pattern is clear: marketplace winners aren’t waiting for hyperscalers to source deals—they’re building the internal muscle to convert pipeline with them.

That’s exactly what we’ll break down on Feb 24 (9–10am PT) in a free, tactical workshop: seller activation frameworks, CRO/CFO alignment, comp design, and 5 templates you can implement this quarter—led by operators who’ve done it at AWS and at scale.

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Inside Dynatrace’s GTM: 90% Channel, 50% Cloud Co-Sell

90% of transactions through partners. 50%+ co-selling with all three hyperscalers.

That’s the GTM playbook behind Dynatrace’s $1B AWS Marketplace milestone - and one that alliance leaders should study.

Dynatrace just crossed $1B in lifetime AWS Marketplace sales, with triple-digit marketplace growth still accelerating.

The company beat guidance across every metric last quarter, raised its full-year outlook, and is about to cross $2B ARR.

But the milestone isn’t the story. The playbook behind it is.

Dynatrace has built one of the most partner-centric GTM strategies. 50%+ of new logos were partner-originated in a recent quarter. The company has passed 50% co-sell with all three hyperscalers.

Today, partners aren’t optional

CEO Rick McConnell stressed in a recent earnings call:

“In an agentic world, engaging in and integrating with an ecosystem of partners, including global system integrators and hyperscalers, will be mandatory. And we are investing to deepen and broaden those relationships.”

Jay Snyder, SVP of Partners & Alliances, laid out the strategy:

“As the company has now close to 90 percent of transactions through the channel… our goal is about 75 percent of our business be co-sell, and a good portion of that be through the marketplace.” (CRN)

Dynatrace isn’t just co-selling — it deeply integrates with all three clouds.

CEO: “In Q3, we announced deeper technical engagements with all of the major hyperscalers.

We’re integrating with Amazon Bedrock Agent Core, embedding Dynatrace with Azure’s SRE agent, and serving as the launch partner for GCP Gemini command line interface extensions and Gemini Enterprise.”

Partners are a productivity multiplier

And it’s showing up in seller economics.

CFO James Benson: “We’ve continued to get significant traction with leveraging our partner channels, notably GSIs, and the hyperscalers continue to be a source of continued improvement in productivity per rep.”

Partners and hyperscalers also pull the company into deals earlier:

“By working more closely with strategic partners, our objective is to participate in digital transformation projects earlier in the purchasing cycle.”

That’s why Dynatrace is committing to “invest in our strategic partner ecosystem”.

Meanwhile, the company disclosed $702.8 million in internal cloud commits...

What alliance leaders should take from this:

1. Co-sell and marketplace are one motion, not two. Dynatrace didn’t build separate marketplace and co-sell plays. They run them together as one strategic GTM.

2. Agentic AI creates new partnership surface area. Dynatrace is embedding into each hyperscaler’s AI agent infrastructure. Every new AI integration becomes a new co-sell trigger.

3. Partners are a productivity multiplier. If your alliance team can’t show that math internally, you’ll keep fighting for headcount.

When partner strategy shows up in earnings calls — not just alliance decks — it’s no longer a channel play.

It’s a corporate strategy.

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Speaker Reveal: Drew Zurek (ex-AWS, now Qlik) — Activating Sellers to Win Marketplace Revenue

Most ISVs agree marketplace matters. But marketplace and ecosystem revenue doesn’t scale on intent — it scales when your sales team knows how to position it, sell it, and win with it.

That’s the gap Drew Zurek has spent his career closing- first as a sales leader driving enterprise growth, then inside AWS, now as an operator at Qlik. And he’s joining our Feb 24 webinar to share exactly how.

Drew is Senior Director, Global Cloud Marketplaces at Qlik, leading marketplace and ecosystem sales and strategy for an organization serving 40,000+ customers globally (and a 15-year Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in Analytics & BI).

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What makes Drew’s insights unique for this session:

During 4 years at AWS, Drew was embedded in the partner growth machine.

He helped architect marketplace strategies for hundreds of ISVs while developing and running the CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) / Head of Sales Fellowship—hands-on sessions designed to teach revenue leaders how to operationalize and expand their co-sell relationship with AWS and Marketplace.

Those Fellowship cohorts trained hundreds of leaders to scale marketplace GTM across their sales teams and accelerate growth.

Having impacted thousands of partners, he’s seen the full spectrum: which companies turn co-sell into a revenue engine and which ones stall at the listing stage.

Now he’s executing that same methodology on the operator side at Qlik.

Drew understands the complete picture.

He knows what hyperscalers want to see from partners.

And he knows what it takes internally—leadership alignment, seller activation, comp structure, deal mechanics—to make marketplace and ecosystem sales work at scale.

That’s exactly what this online workshop is built around.

🗓️ Join us Feb 24, 9–10 AM PT as we break down:

• How to structure your marketplace motion so sellers actually use it (not work around it)

• The leadership alignment playbook that gets CRO and CFO buy-in

• What top companies are doing differently in 2026 to scale marketplace revenue globally

• Templates you can take back to your team and implement this quarter

Drew will be joined by an AWS leader, Trunal Bhanse (CEO, Clazar), Fabrizio Cataldo (Business Development & Partnerships, Supabase), and myself.

We’ll cover this from multiple angles: the key industry drivers, strategic growth patterns we’re seeing working across the market, the hyperscaler perspective, and the automation/ops layer.

If you want to learn from someone who built the playbook inside AWS, trained hundreds of CROs across the industry, and now runs it at a 40K-customer enterprise—this is the session.

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Thanks to our partner Clazar for supporting this workshop

Clazar is the leading Cloud Sales Acceleration Platform for Go-to-Market teams to scale revenue on AWS, Azure, and Google cloud marketplaces. From listing to co-selling to revenue reconciliation and recognition, our platform helps companies streamline and automate their entire cloud sales journey from a single, unified platform—with zero operational overhead.

Clazar integrates seamlessly with leading CRMs, offers robust governance controls, and fully complies with industry-leading security standards. Top companies like Pinecone, Perplexity, Confluent, Cursor, and Replit trust Clazar to power their success on cloud marketplaces.

To learn more, please visit www.clazar.io

Who Actually Sources Cloud Marketplace deals?

And if hyperscalers “only” source 10–20% of deals, are Marketplace and co-sell overrated?

IDC’s recent AWS Marketplace study breaks down the numbers:

• ISV AEs open most opportunities: 44.8% sourced by ISVs

• Joint discovery (co-sell) with AWS: 16.7%

• AWS-only sourced: 10.1%

• The rest: APN partners 15.0%, self-serve/PLG 13.3%

At first glance, it looks like ISVs “do all the work” on marketplaces, while hyperscalers get the credit.

Here’s my read of the report—and why that interpretation misses what’s actually driving the 2X growth numbers.

The misconception killing marketplace strategies:

Many alliance leaders list in marketplaces expecting hyperscalers to source opportunities. When they get only a handful of deals, it feels like a failed promise. But origination and co-sell are fundamentally different jobs, and confusing them leaves the biggest growth lever unused.

Reality: co-sell + Marketplace are force multipliers after origination.

Most ISV-sourced opps become co-sell later to accelerate the cycle, retire commits, and speed procurement/legal via Private Offers.

Why Co-Sell and Marketplace drive faster growth (report data)

Sellers who co-sell report 2X software sales growth vs. those who don’t.

75% of surveyed sellers co-sell with AWS and see that lift. If you’re not co-selling, you’re leaving the biggest lever unused.

Marketplace businesses accelerate 41% faster

AWS Marketplace revenue grows ~41% faster than the rest of software for surveyed sellers.

Private Offers are the enterprise default (>50% of MP transactions)

More than half of AWS MP transactions are Private Offers; over a third of sellers’ reps have executed at least one

Marketplace KPIs are superior

Sellers cite shorter cycles (45%), faster cash collection (43%), more reliable payouts (48%), and stronger renewals (33%) vs. traditional motions.

Result? 23% of revenue through MP

Companies listed 55% of their portfolios. With nearly a quarter of revenue via MP, it’s now a core driver.

So what? Sourcing and co-sell are different jobs

Sourcing = open the door. Your AEs still generate most pipeline—by design.

Co-sell = finish the job. Pull AWS in to add account intel, credibility, learn about customer commits, get exec cover, and transact with a PO. That’s where the 2X shows up.

Yes, only ~10% of deals are sourced by hyperscalers and ~17% are jointly sourced.

Yet co-sell and Marketplace remain the growth engine because they change the outcome of the other 70% you sourced yourself.

Generate the pipeline; use AWS and MP to accelerate, de-risk, and close. That’s how companies already drive 23% of their revenue and growing.

Source: Research

Want the Marketplace Operator Playbook?

On Feb 24 (9–10am PT, online) we’ll break down how to turn cloud commits into Marketplace revenue - seller activation, CRO/CFO alignment, and templates you can implement this quarter.

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79% of CEOs plan to pursue strategic alliances and JVs in 2026 — up from 62% in 2025

17% jump in a year means that partnerships are now a CEO-level transformation lever, not a side program.

That’s data from the EY-Parthenon CEO Outlook 2026 — a survey of 1,200 CEOs across 21 countries conducted in Nov–Dec 2025.

The backdrop explains the urgency

97% of companies are undergoing a significant transformation or are about to start one.

“The majority of CEOs now report that they are either in the midst of a significant enterprise-wide transformation initiative (52%) or plan to begin one in 2026 (45%).”

At the same time, “61% of CEOs anticipate higher operating costs in 2026.”

The pressure is real: transform faster while spending more carefully.

What are they optimizing for?

“Globally, 43% of CEOs identify optimizing operations and improving productivity, including digitalization, as their top desired outcome.”

40% prioritize “improving customer engagement and retention”.

It’s telling that customer retention is now higher priority than accelerating growth (36%).

Now the partnership spike makes sense

Companies need to transform, digitize, engage customers and grow faster.

79% of CEOs plan to pursue strategic alliances and JVs in 2026, up from 62% in 2025 — a “sharp rise that underscores the appeal of partnerships in unlocking access to new capabilities.”

Why? Because “these collaborations offer a pragmatic route to accelerate innovation and share risk.”

It concludes: “Alliances and JVs are emerging as critical levers for speed, flexibility, and adaptability in an environment where transformation cannot wait.”

AI technology is no longer experimental

Reflecting on AI impact, 20% of CEOs say that AI outcomes are “significantly above expectations”, and 58% “somewhat above” — 78% above expectations in total.

But scaling AI enterprise-wide requires capabilities most companies don’t have in-house.

As we discussed before, strategic alliances—whether with hyperscalers, technology vendors, or implementation partners—are becoming the default path to close that gap.

The EY data suggests we’re in a new phase: one where alliances are essential infrastructure for transformation and growth.

What’s your read—are you seeing the same urgency from your customers and partners?

Source: research.

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s newsletter:

• $531B → ~$900B in cloud commits — AI just pulled enterprise cloud budgets forward faster than anyone projected. What it means for your marketplace deals.

• Google Cloud’s killer quarter — 48% revenue growth, $240B backlog, and partner AI revenue up nearly 300%.

• AWS beat every estimate — 24% growth (fastest in 13 quarters), $244B in commits, and $44B in new backlog added in a single quarter.

Before we dive in:

Join us on February 24, 9-10 am PT for a tactical online workshop on turning these cloud commits into your marketplace revenue. You’ll walk away with frameworks for CEO buy-in, sales comp design, co-sell scripts, and more.

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$531B → ~$900B in cloud commits AI just pulled cloud budgets forward

Cloud commits across AWS, Azure and GCP jumped to nearly $900B last quarter - up from $531B just one quarter prior.

AI demand is rewriting enterprise procurement faster than anyone projected.

Here’s what each hyperscaler reported for the last quarter (Q4 CY2025):

Amazon Web Services (AWS):

$244B cloud commits (+40% YoY, +22% QoQ)

Revenue reaccelerated to 24% on a $142B run rate — the fastest pace in 13 quarters.

CEO Andy Jassy described a “barbelled market” with AI labs consuming massive compute on one end and enterprises deploying cost-saving workloads on the other. Both sides are pulling forward commitments.

Google Cloud

$240B cloud commits (+100%+ YoY, +55% QoQ)

The standout mover this quarter.

Revenue grew 48% to a $70B+ run rate — the fastest growth among the big three.

Backlog more than doubled year-over-year, jumping $85B in 90 days. Sundar Pichai, CEO, noted: “The number of deals over a billion dollars in 2025 surpassed the previous three years combined.”

Existing customers are outpacing initial commitments by 30%+.

Microsoft

Reported $625B total commercial RPO (+110% YoY), that spans all Microsoft Cloud products, not just Azure.

But this quarter brought an interesting new data point: 45% of the $625B — roughly $281B — comes from OpenAI (that runs on Azure).

If we apply the 45% of Azure share we used previously to the remaining non-OpenAI backlog, we’ll additionally arrive at up to $155B in diversified enterprise Azure commits.

This would put the total Azure backlog at $436B total, inclusive of OpenAI share.

In a recent call, CFO Amy Hood highlighted that the non-OpenAI part of their total backlog is also growing quickly: “Roughly $350 billion is related to the breadth of our portfolio... larger and more diversified than most peers.”

That diversified base grew 28% YoY — the organic demand signal beneath the headline.

Why include large OpenAI deals in the combined total of ~$900B commits calculation?

AWS and Google Cloud backlogs likely also include undisclosed large AI lab commitments — Anthropic and others. Microsoft is simply the first to disclose the customer concentration.

What this means for your marketplace strategy:

All three clouds remain supply-constrained and locking in bigger, longer deals. These are pre-allocated budgets enterprises must consume — and cloud marketplaces remain the fastest path to capture that spend.

• Map which of your target accounts hold cloud commits and with which provider

• Align your offers and co-sell to where those commit dollars sit

• Use commit drawdown timelines to create deal urgency with procurement

How are you factoring this rapid cloud commit growth into your marketplace deals?

Pro Tip:

Hyperscalers will prioritize partners who help customers turn committed spend into measurable AI ROI. If your offer accelerates AI adoption (and proves outcomes), your co-sell attention goes up fast.

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Next, I’ll break down each hyperscaler’s growth drivers and what they signal for partners. But first — if you want the templates to turn commits into marketplace revenue:

$900B Cloud Commitments: 5 Templates to Convert Spend into Marketplace Revenue

Cloud commitments just reached ~$900B — a roughly 2X increase in 12 months. Translation for alliance leaders: customers have pre-allocated cloud funds they must spend. You can tap into these commits selling your software on cloud marketplaces.

But here’s the gap: most ISVs list on marketplaces, but stall between “listed” and actually “growing.” Their sellers don’t know when or how to route deals via marketplaces. Their leadership hasn’t fully bought in. Their ops can’t scale it.

We’re fixing that — with templates you can copy.

Join us February 24 (9–10 AM PT) for a tactical 60-minute session where we’ll break down what’s changed in 2026 and hand you the playbooks to capture the opportunity.

We’ll cover:

• Market drivers: why the $900B milestone changes the math for every ISV on marketplace

• How top teams set up and execute marketplace growth — from leadership buy-in to seller activation

• 5 ready-to-use frameworks and templates (CEO pitch, sales comp design, co-sell scripts, seller enablement checklist, automation playbook)

• How to automate the motion and remove friction — so your team scales without adding headcount

Learn from operators who’ve built the motion

• Drew Zurek, Senior Director, Global Cloud Marketplaces at Qlik, brings 20+ years across cloud, SaaS, and enterprise tech — including leadership roles at AWS and Salesforce.

• He’ll be joined by Trunal Bhanse, CEO of Clazar, on the execution and automation layer

• Plus additional speakers, including AWS to be announced shortly.

You’ll walk away with a Marketplace Template Pack.

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If you’re leading alliances, marketplace activation, sales enablement, or RevOps — this is the session that turns the $900B commits milestone into your pipeline and closed revenue.

Google Cloud’s killer quarter: 48% growth + 240 backlog

Google Cloud revenue up 48% YoY. Cloud’s backlog jumped from $155B to $240B in just 3 months.

But the partner signals are what deserve real attention.

Google reported Q4 last week. Here’s what matters for Cloud Alliance and tech leaders

Revenue hit $17.7 billion, up 48% year-over-year.

Annual run rate crossed $70 billion. Operating margin expanded to 30.1%, up from 17.5% last year.

The SaaS adoption is striking

95% of top 20 SaaS companies now use Gemini. Over 80% of the top 100. Salesforce. Shopify. More than 120,000 enterprises use Gemini, including AI unicorns like Lovable and OpenEvidence.

Sundar Pichai framed it directly: “Gemini is becoming the AI engine for the world’s most successful software companies.”

Partner revenue is accelerating fast

Revenue from AI solutions built by partners grew nearly 300% year-over-year.

Commitments from Google’s top 15 software partners increased more than 16X compared to last year.

That’s not incremental growth. That’s a strategic pivot toward ecosystem-led AI distribution.

The enterprise motion is working

New customer velocity doubled compared to Q1.

Deals over $1 billion in 2025 exceeded the previous three years combined.

Existing customers are outpacing their initial commitments by over 30%.

AI customers behave differently

“Nearly 75% of Google Cloud customers have used our vertically optimized AI – from chips, to models, to AI platforms, and enterprise AI agents”

They use 1.8X as many Google Cloud products as non-AI customers.

In December alone, 350 customers each processed over 100 billion tokens.

8 million paid Gemini Enterprise seats sold across 2,800+ companies.

This creates natural expansion paths for ISVs who integrate with AI workflows.

The infrastructure bet is massive.

Google announced $175-185 billion in CapEx for 2026.

Sundar acknowledged they remain “supply constrained” even at this scale.

Demand is outpacing capacity.

The $240 billion backlog represents committed customer spend

And an increasing share of customer wallets can flow through Google Cloud Marketplace — where customers can buy ISV partner products with their cloud commitment.

When partner revenue triples and billion-dollar deals multiply, the co-sell math changes.

Is Google Cloud Marketplace part of your 2026 growth plan?

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AWS beat all expectations: 24% growth, $244 backlog

Wall Street underestimated AWS.

21.4% growth expected → 24% delivered + added $44B new cloud backlog in a single quarter.

If you run cloud alliances, this is your 2026 major demand signal from the world’s biggest cloud.

Here’s what the Q4 call just revealed:

Growth accelerated further on a massive base

“AWS growth continued to accelerate to 24%… the fastest we’ve seen in 13 quarters.” That’s “up $2.6 billion quarter over quarter… and nearly $7 billion year over year.”

AWS is now “a $142 billion annualized run rate business.”

“Our backlog is $244 billion… up 40% year over year… up 22% quarter over quarter.”

This isn’t only AI — core migrations are back

“We’re… seeing strong growth in core non-AI workloads as enterprises return to… moving infrastructure from on premises to the cloud.”

Finance was explicit: acceleration was “driven by both core and AI services.”

Partners were named as part of the edge

AWS highlighted its “most vibrant partner ecosystem,” then listed new agreements (OpenAI, Accenture, HSBC, CrowdStrike, Adobe, Salesforce, and more).

They also claimed “more of the top 500 US startups use AWS… than the next two providers combined.”

Bedrock is scaling because buyers want choice

“Most sophisticated AI applications leverage multiple models.” “Bedrock is now a multi-billion dollar annualized run rate business,” with customer spend up “60% quarter over quarter.”

And customers want AI “where the rest of their applications and data are.” AWS even pushed custom models earlier in the lifecycle (Nova Forge), calling it “a potential game changer.”

AI expands the rest of the footprint

“As customers run large AI workloads on AWS, they’re adding to their core AWS footprint as well.”

The next battleground is AI agents

Enterprises are “apprehensive about deploying to production” until agents can connect to “data, tools, memory, identity, policy, governance…” But Bedrock Agent Core is now “unlocking deployments.”

Demand is ahead of supply (still)

“We could actually grow faster if we had all the supply that we could take.” AWS added “3.9GW of power” in 12 months, “1.2GW” just in Q4, and expects to “double it again by the end of 27.”

CFO: AWS “added more data center capacity than any other company in the world.”

AWS plans “about $200B” in capex, “predominantly in AWS,” while “monetizing capacity as fast as we can install it.”

Silicon + economics are becoming GTM levers

AWS says chips (Graviton + Trainium) are “over $10B” run rate. Trainium2 has “over 1.4 million” chips landed; Trainium3 supply is expected to be “committed by mid 2026.”

And the principle is simple: “we have to make the costs of inference lower.”

$244B is customer cloud commits

If $244B is the committed demand pool... are your AWS partner + marketplace GTM positioned to capture it?

PS. I covered the full Microsoft earnings breakdown in last week’s issue.

PPS. Thanks for reading! If this issue sparked an idea, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud counterpart — it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s newsletter:

• ServiceNow’s partner focus is wild: one SI drives 11% of revenue; ServiceNow also disclosed $4.7B in cloud obligations. We’ll break down their scaling playbook (>20% growth) and why “indirect” can become the default in some segments.

• Co-sell is a math problem: cloud sellers often carry $50–$100M books and don’t have time for everyone. Use this 5-Minute Intro to stop getting ignored.

• Microsoft hit $625B in total commercial backlog (+110% YoY) with Azure growing 39%—plus why Satya is betting agents become the new apps.

• AI is shifting TAM from 1% of GDP (software) to 20% (labor)—and why partners become the rollout moat in an agentic world.

Want to be featured? Partner Insight newsletter reaches 5,000+ Cloud GTM leaders weekly—I’m opening a small Contributor Circle for operator playbooks + templates (details below).

Before we dive in — if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe (free). And if this issue is useful, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart — it’s how this community shares what works.

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ServiceNow playbook: one SI = 11% revenue; $4.7B commits

Rule of scaling in 2026: you don’t scale alone.

ServiceNow: one SI drives 11% of revenue; they have $4.7B in cloud commitments, while hyperscaler adoption is shifting their business mix.

ServiceNow still growing >20% at $15B+ scale — in a market that’s questioning whether non-native AI software can grow at all.

They just reported a better-than-expected Q4, 21% subscription revenue growth, and RPO up 25% (21% in CC). That’s a demand signal, not a narrative.

Here are the partnership lessons hiding in plain sight:

1️⃣ Partners are core to their revenue

ServiceNow discloses that an “increasing portion of revenue flows through partners”.

That’s a shift many companies talk about, but few admit in black-and-white.

2️⃣ Some segments are structurally indirect (& concentrated)

They explain that a substantial majority of U.S. government sales are indirect via distributors, resellers, and service provider partners.

One U.S. federal channel partner / systems integrator represented 11% of total revenue.

This is the part alliance teams often underestimate: in some segments, the partner isn’t just helping close deals - the partner is the buyer-facing GTM default.

3️⃣ Hyperscaler adoption is so strong, it changes business mix

They specifically called out a mix shift from on-prem to hosted that was “partially driven by strong adoption of hyperscaler offerings.”

That reframes hyperscaler GTM as more than distribution: It changes how customers buy and consume your platform.

4️⃣ ServiceNow itself is living in the “commit economy”

ServiceNow disclosed $4.7B in non-cancellable cloud services obligations — and $2.8B of that sits in 2030.

Even at $15B+ scale, ServiceNow isn’t just selling through hyperscalers — they’re also a massive, long-dated buyer in the same commit economy.

And the spike in 2030 shows how multi-year cloud commitments concentrate.

5️⃣ Their “platform pitch” is really an ecosystem pitch

CEO Bill McDermott: “AI doesn’t replace enterprise orchestration. It depends on it.”

AI isn’t eating the enterprise platform. It’s eating “feature” vendors.

Real value happens when models are built into workflows where real decisions are made.

His definition of a modern platform is not “we have AI.” It’s: the platform has to work with language models, hyperscalers, data lakes, and systems of record — and stitch them into something coherent.

For alliance leaders, that’s a strong signal that the ecosystem is becoming part of the product.

Partnering with all the power centers at once

ServiceNow expanded partnerships they called out this quarter include Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, NTT DATA — and they explicitly highlight relationships with Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and NVIDIA.

Question for alliance leaders:

In your GTM, are partners and hyperscalers still ‘supporting’… or are they becoming the operating system for growth?

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Co-Sell Challenge: Why Your Pitch Gets Ignored

Cloud account managers at AWS, Azure, and Google carry quotas that would make most CEOs sweat - often $100M+ a year.

When you ask for their time, you’re competing against hundreds of partners and thousands of accounts.

Ask yourself: If you had a $50–100M quota, how much time would you spend on a pitch with an unclear benefit?

That’s not cynicism—it’s math. And it explains why most first co-sell calls go nowhere.

What actually works: the 5-Minute Intro

The formula: Customer outcome → Cloud outcome (specific services) → Your outcome.

What’s your one-liner use case?

Skip features and jargon. Focus on customers.

“We reduce <metric> by <X%> in <N> weeks for <buyer persona>.”

“In <industry/geo>, we delivered <ROI/time-to-value>. Two recent examples: <1> and <2>”

Why should a seller care?

Translate how this makes the cloud provider win and tie it to consumption.

Does it drive new workloads? New line of business? Expansion of specific services? Helps with their AI story? Be explicit about their benefit, not yours.

“Workloads run on <Service>. Deal drives < e.g. AWS Bedrock> usage and <> hours.”

Emphasize that you transact through the marketplace - tied to their comp, helps customers burn commits, etc.

Who is your sponsor at this customer?

Prove you’ve done the work - already have traction in the customer and aren’t fishing.

What have you already done?

Champion mapped. Security review complete. Buyer path aligned to marketplace workflows.

What’s your ONE ask?

Account intel? Customer’s spend commitment? Help with POC? Procurement intro?

One ask per touch. Many asks = no action

3 principles that make this stick

About-YOU, not about-me

Swap features for customer and cloud benefits. Refine to 2–3 short sentences.

Narrow scope

Start with one deal + one vertical + one region + one repeatable use case. Don’t boil the ocean.

Right pitch, right room

AEs care about revenue and speed. Engineers care about fit and risk. Procurement cares about time and terms. Keep the outcome constant; adjust the angle.

What kills your credibility

Generic pitches across clouds

Say the wrong service name and you’ve signaled you’re not serious.

Broad account-mapping sessions

Unless you’ve already closed together, sellers won’t spend hours theorizing. Show up with a qualified opportunity.

Assuming your sales team “gets it” instinctively

Even seasoned enterprise reps need training on hyperscaler economics and marketplace mechanics, if they don’t have previous cloud experience.

Most successful alliance leaders personally join the first seller calls to frame and de-risk the conversation. Then they hand-hold the first five to ten wins.

What’s your co-sell process?

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Want to be featured in Partner Insight? Join our Contributor Circle

Each week this Partner Insight newsletter reaches 5,000+ Cloud GTM leaders.

I’m opening a small Partner Insight Contributor Circle for senior operators in Cloud GTM / Alliances / Marketplaces who are willing to share their practical playbook or case study this quarter.

I’m looking for operator field notes — the playbook you used, the metrics that moved, the template that saved hours.

• Get featured across Partner Insight newsletter and LinkedIn insight

• A direct line to me + the Partner Insight network

What I’m looking for

• Cloud GTM Strategy or marketplace deal breakdown

• Marketplace execution playbooks: steps, metrics, timelines.

• Templates you use: co-sell intros, one-pagers, checklists.

• AI workflows/prompts with impact: what you automated → output → result

Interested?

Reply to this email (or email newsletter@partnerinsight.io) with:

1. Your name, role, LinkedIn

2. What you can share (2-3 sentences on why it’s compelling).

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Microsoft: Azure +39%, $625B Backlog + Agents Are the New Apps

$625B. That’s Microsoft’s total commercial cloud backlog (RPO) this quarter (+110% YoY).

Yes, OpenAI is a big chunk — but even excluding it, the commitments still grew 28%.

Cloud momentum in addition to the mega-deals

CFO Amy Hood said ~45% of total RPO is driven by OpenAI. The remaining ~$345B (+28%) reflects what she called “ongoing broad customer demand across the portfolio.”

Azure itself grew impressive 39% YoY, beating guidance.

Microsoft Cloud revenue crossed $51.5B this quarter. Using my previous conservative 45% Azure share proxy, that implies ~$90B+ Azure revenue annualized.

But Azure growth could have been even higher. With demand still exceeding capacity, Microsoft is rationing compute across M365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, R&D, Teams, and Azure.

Satya Nadella was clear on the strategy: “We don’t want to maximize just one business... [we want to] build the best LTV portfolio.”

Amy Hood noted that if the GPUs that came online were allocated entirely to Azure, growth would have been “over 40.”

The bigger strategic play: agents as the next platform

Satya suggested to “[think of] agents as the new apps” and laid out the full stack requirements: model catalog, tuning, orchestration, context engineering, safety, observability, and security.

Side note (maybe I’m biased): that stack description reads a lot like what marketplaces do at scale — catalog + distribution + governance + trust — just applied to agents.

Agent adoption is already meaningful:

• Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have active agents built using Microsoft’s low-code tools.

• M365 Copilot hit 15 million paid seats, with seat adds up 160% YoY.

• Larger deployments are accelerating — the number of customers with 35,000+ seats tripled, including one deployment at 95,000 seats.

The control-plane move is particularly interesting.

Microsoft introduced Agent 365 to extend governance, identity, and security controls to agents — even those running on other clouds.

Adobe, Databricks, SAP, ServiceNow, and Workday are already integrating.

As Satya framed it: “We are the first provider to offer this type of agent control plane across clouds.”

Governance is scaling alongside AI adoption

One datapoint shows the governance layer is growing with usage: 24B Copilot interactions audited by Purview (+9x YoY).

This signals where enterprise AI spending will increasingly concentrate: not just model access, but compliance, auditability, and risk management tooling.

AI infrastructure buildout is remarkable

Microsoft spent $37.5B on CapEx this quarter. That’s ~$150B annualized pace if continued — though management expects CapEx to step down sequentially next quarter.

Still, Microsoft is compounding two engines at once: strong cloud growth and a rapidly expanding infrastructure layer.

This accelerates its ecosystem — more production workloads, more partner attach, more marketplace motion.

Are you leveraging it?

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Biggest AI TAM shift: IT budgets to Operating Spend (+ Partner Upside)

Software captures 1% of US GDP. White-collar payroll is 20% - that gap explains why the world’s largest VC, a16z raised $15B and now all-in on AI.

But what does this mean for partners?

Andreessen Horowitz put it plainly:

AI isn’t just expanding the SaaS market — it’s now benchmarked with a much larger spend pool: labor.

New TAM math is staggering:

Even if most AI value flows to customers (a16z rule of thumb is 90% of software-driven value goes to customers, 10% to vendors), 10% of a market that’s 20X larger is still enormous.

You’ve probably heard what makes this cycle different

• AI adoption spreads >5X faster

• Costs collapse as model capabilities ~2X every 7 months

Infrastructure buildout is being funded primarily by hyperscalers spending ~$400B annually on AI capex. They bear the burden — and, as a result, they also become the gravity wells for ecosystems where partners capture value.

Here’s the part that matters most:

New rules of software

1️⃣ Systems of action will matter more than systems of record

Software that only stores data becomes less compelling. The new moat is agentic capability layered on top of workflows — software that can do the work, not just track it.

As we move from systems of record to systems of action, the winners won’t be the ones that help store the truth — they’ll help execute it.

2️⃣ Defensibility becomes operational

Models will swap out via API. What doesn’t swap easily is everything around them: integrations, rules, approvals, security, governance, and trust. Stickiness shifts from UI to embedded process.

3️⃣ Pricing shifts from seats to outcomes

Seat-based pricing starts to break when software replaces tasks. The direction of travel is clear: buyers want to pay for value created, not the number of logins.

What this means for partners + Cloud GTM leaders

The partner ecosystem becomes the moat — because the bottleneck is change

Bottleneck isn’t an AI model choice. It’s org change: data readiness, workflow redesign, governance, security, and adoption.

Models are swapping out via API. What doesn’t swap easily is change management. That’s why partners become the moat.

Trust + access become GTM advantages

In an agentic world, “who can run in production” matters more than “who demos best.” Partners who can deliver safe rollout, controls, and proof become power brokers.

Marketplaces become the rails for outcome buying + governance

If significantly more software is built and used by more people, more often, companies will desperately need rails to evaluate, buy, govern, expand, and measure.

Marketplaces help to experiment safely and turn into repeatable purchase — with packaging, commits, and expansion built in.

They will be a governance layer for agentic software: approved vendor, billing, terms, and usage controls in one place.

Net:

Software market may feel threatened — but the bigger story is software moving into work, expanding the pie, and creating a new layer of value.

What’s your take?

P.S. Thanks for reading! If this issue sparked an idea, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud counterpart — it’s how this community shares what works.

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P.P. S. Have a killer playbook like the Co-Sell guide above? Check our Contributor program above to get featured.

In today’s newsletter:

• AI spend jumps to $2.52T in 2026 (up from $1.76T in 2025) — and the real signal is where the money moves: $401B more into infrastructure + $149B into AI services (what this Gartner forecast means for your partner stack).

• Seller adoption of marketplaces isn’t a “motivation” problem — it’s incentives + enablement + measurement (5 field-tested levers to drive seller behavior and scale Marketplace-driven revenue).

• Tech services are getting squeezed and expanded at the same time — McKinsey flags 20–30% compression in “manual” services while agentic AI creates up to $400B of new ecosystem opportunity by 2030.

• Cohort 14 of our Cloud GTM Leader course just kicked off — and it’s a signal of where Cloud GTM is headed: teams are shifting marketplaces from an “end-of-quarter scramble” to a cross-functional growth system.

Before we dive in — if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe (free). And if this issue is useful, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart — it’s how this community shares what works.

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AI Spend to Hit $2.52T: 3 Growth Drivers in 2026

AI spend is projected to jump from $1.76T (2025) to $2.52T (2026). The number is big. But the shape of the growth is what matters.

I rebuilt the Gartner forecast into a 2025 → 2026 view, and three things stand out for alliance leaders.

1️⃣ Services is the most interesting signal: AI adoption is becoming partner-led at scale

AI Services is the #3 biggest absolute growth bucket — adding $149B in 2026 alone.

That’s Gartner highlighting what most operators already feel:

AI success is less about a “feature launch” and more about implementation — integration, governance, security reviews, data readiness, change management, and ongoing optimization.

This is where partners win.

SIs/MSPs aren’t an add-on. They’re the adoption engine that makes AI usable inside real companies.

If you lead alliances, this should inform your partner strategy: your “AI partner stack” is becoming a repeatable delivery motion.

2️⃣ Gartner’s bigger message on SaaS: incumbents have a winning path — if they prove outcomes

There’s a loud narrative that “SaaS is disrupted by AI.” Gartner pushes back:

“Because AI is in the Trough of Disillusionment throughout 2026, it will most often be sold… by their incumbent software provider…”

In plain language: buyers still prefer familiar vendors — but only when ROI is defensible.

My view: both outcomes will likely happen.

• Some legacy software companies will accelerate (distribution, budgets, procurement paths, installed base).

• Others will get disrupted (if they can’t ship real outcomes, or AI collapses differentiation).

The key takeaway: the default outcome isn’t “SaaS dies.” It’s “SaaS gets re-ranked by outcomes.”

3️⃣ Infrastructure is the gravity — turning cloud into the distribution layer for everything else

Infra shows the biggest dollar increase. Gartner calls out providers “building out AI foundations,” with infrastructure adding $401B in 2026.

When infrastructure becomes the largest and fast-expanding pool, the cloud becomes the distribution layer for everything else — software procurement, services delivery, and the operating model around it.

If you’re not aligned to hyperscaler motions, you’re not aligned with the strongest pull.

Fastest % growth (small bases, loud signals):

• AI Data grows ~3x (data readiness is key)

• AI Cybersecurity nearly doubles (governance and risk budgets are catching up fast)

• AI Models also grow quickly, though from a smaller base than infra/software/services.

What this means for marketplaces

Put those signals together and the implication is clear. If the fastest-growing spend pools are infrastructure + software + services, the winners will be the companies that can:

• attach to hyperscaler infrastructure budgets (cloud consumption, committed spend, procurement convenience),

• sell AI software as an expansion of existing buying paths (like marketplaces)

• and package services so adoption doesn’t stall after purchase

PS. Source

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5 Seller Incentives To Drive Marketplace Revenue

Marketplace adoption by field sales teams is not a “motivation” problem. It’s an “incentives + enablement + measurement” problem.

Marketplace is one of the few GTM levers that can materially change outcomes — bigger deals, faster closes and less procurement friction. Yet many field sellers are slow to adopt them.

Recently we discussed how to drive Marketplace adoption & revenue in a webinar with AWS + ISV leaders.

Here are 5 incentives they see working:

1️⃣ Start with comp neutrality

Juston Salcido (then Sr. Partner Development Specialist at AWS) put it plainly:

“If your reps don’t get the same comp for deals that go through Marketplace that go direct, they’re gonna naturally just gravitate back towards the path that compensates them the most.”

Translation: Marketplaces need the same comp treatment + integrated into the sales process/CRM, not bolted on at the end.

2️⃣ Run a temporary comp-positive SPIF (to drive behavior change)

Comp neutrality removes the penalty. SPIFs create momentum.

In practice: time-box it (6–12 months), trigger when deals are transacted via Marketplace, and tier it by deal size so you’re not overpaying on small deals.

Kyle Heisner (Head of GTM & Alliances, Suger) shared what happens when a company removed it too early:

“He dropped his SPIF program… and he saw a 40% drop in the next quarter… [and] immediately went back and implemented it.”

3️⃣ Add recognition + competition

Prashant Pai (EVP, Strategic Alliances, KnowBe4) explained how they reinforce behavior at scale:

“We have an internal leaderboard… and we share that all the time on our revenue cadence calls. These reps have done the most deals through marketplaces, these reps have done the largest deals… We do that for our direct sellers, for our renewal folks, and for our channel folks as well.”

This works because sellers are competitive — and it makes Marketplace visible inside the revenue org.

4️⃣ Pay sellers to become internal evangelists

Mike Marzano (Global Head of Cloud Alliances, Contentsquare) described my favorite “second-order” incentive he implemented for his field:

“By going through the marketplace, you’ll get a SPIF. But if you go and put a story out on our global sales channel about why you co-sold, how you did it… what went well… what you’d do better… and you share that out… I’ll pay you more.”

That’s how you turn one win into a shared playbook.

5️⃣ Make Marketplace measurable

Juston’s conclusion was simple:

“You really gotta start tracking… the average deal size for direct deals, the average deal size for deals that go through Marketplace and have a co-sell influence.”

This helps sellers see faster cycles / bigger deals, Finance (and the rest) to see time-to-cash, and why Marketplace fees are worth it.

If you don’t measure it, the program becomes opinion — and may get cut when priorities shift.

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AI Reshapes Tech Services as Outsourced IT Spend Set to Rise (McKinsey)

Traditional IT budgets are tightening, yet agentic AI and outsourcing spending 📈 are expanding. How do you square that circle?

Let’s look at the tech service market, where partnerships are now crucial and compression and expansion happen at the same time.

McKinsey & Company frames the shift as we move from creating code to agentic AI—software that can take actions across systems.

Rules for service providers, SIs, ISVs and hyperscalers are changing.

⬇️ Where the market is compressing

A lot of work that used to justify headcount or long service engagements is getting cheaper:

• routine execution is increasingly automated

• more teams are building capability in-house

• repeatable delivery is harder to price by the hour

Pure-play AI startups and platform providers will sometimes go direct, bypassing parts of the traditional SI motion.

McKinsey estimates this could contract parts of traditional Tech Services by 20–30%. Services aren’t dying — but services tied to manual execution face the most pressure.

⬆️ Where the market is expanding

At the same time, scaling agents creates new spend. McKinsey estimates $100B–$400B of incremental opportunity by 2030, including:

• Workflow services ($200B): designing the architecture, governance, and security for agents. Making agents work in the enterprise requires complex integrations, permissions, monitoring, and exception handling—problems most teams can’t solve alone.

• Business function transformation: redesigning how departments (HR, support, ops) run with “human + agent” workflows.

Partnerships and ecosystems matter more than ever

Historically, companies scaled first, then partnered. In the agentic era, many will need to partner before scale to offer a complete solution.

No single vendor delivers end-to-end agentic AI. Real deployments demand a best-of-breed mesh across models, orchestration layers, SaaS platforms, data, and security. In practice, the fastest path to production is usually an ecosystem play—not a single-vendor promise.

That shifts market dynamics:

Service providers increasingly productize delivery (“service-as-software”) by building reusable IP, not just selling hours.

Marketplaces matter more as packaging and procurement rails for repeatable solutions—especially when integrations and controls are proven.

Hyperscalers are foundational, but partnerships become less about resale mechanics and more about deep technical integration and shared delivery patterns.

What winners tend to do

Winners won’t be the broad generalists. They’ll be specialized builders who:

• bring real domain expertise (you can’t build a healthcare claims agent without claims expertise)

• align pricing to outcomes

• treat ecosystem readiness as a first-class product requirement, not a late-stage GTM add-on

The market is adjusting for those who sell effort. It’s expanding for those who can reliably deliver outcomes.

PS. Source

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Insights from Cloud GTM Leader Cohort 14 launch

Cohort 14 of our Cloud GTM Leader course just kicked off — and what stood out was the cross-section of partner operators being pulled into marketplaces from different directions inside the partner org. This tells you where Cloud GTM is going next.

Leaders who run partner sales, partner ops, regional channels, and teams building the alliance motion from zero all shared the same conclusion:

Marketplace GTM may start in alliances, but it’s too strategic and too consequential for revenue, so it scales through the cross-company efforts.

They’re converging on the same problem: turning the marketplace from an end-of-quarter scramble into the default buying path. For some it’s about learning; for others it’s about scaling; for a few experienced operators it’s also about giving back.

Here are 5 signals you can learn from:

1️⃣ Marketplace is no longer a “nice to have”

Multiple leaders said customers, partners and field teams have shifted from being curious about marketplace… to actively demanding it.

2️⃣ Private offers are driving most of the value

One mature operator shared their early thesis was “public offers + product-led.”

What actually moved (massive) revenue: private offers + repeatable co-sell motions.

And the pressure is now coming from the field: where marketplace flows exist, sellers want them; where they don’t, they complain.

3️⃣ The biggest bottleneck is still internal

A consistent pattern came up across roles: the cloud side is workable… but internal alignment often takes months.

Comp neutrality was mentioned repeatedly as the hinge point — without it, marketplace becomes “special handling,” and AEs avoid it. Several described extended internal evangelism just to get a reliable “yes” from Sales leadership.

4️⃣ Global + multi-cloud scaling isn’t copy/paste

Leaders working across hyperscalers highlighted how different each hyperscaler motion feels. You need to learn and adapt substantially.

It’s equally hard to replicate one-geo success across the full GTM org. In some markets you can’t even go direct; distribution structures and local rules can change the strategy.

5️⃣ Marketplace is becoming a cross-functional operating system

This isn’t just about listing. It touches comp models/incentives, deal desk, billing, product packaging, approvals, and CRM integration. That’s why partner ops and revenue plumbing are increasingly part of the conversation.

Net takeaway:

In 2026 Cloud GTM isn’t just “doing marketplace.”

It’s designing and implementing a scalable system where marketplace is an easy path for your buyers and sellers to transact — and it’s embedded operationally, financially, and culturally across the org.

Enterprise budgets, C-suite priorities, and hyperscaler focus are all tilting toward marketplaces. When buyers prefer to buy this way, companies and sellers follow the money.

Cohort 14 of Cloud GTM Leader course will be a deep dive into building that system. Excited to learn together over the next five weeks with 15+ incredible operators.

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s newsletter:

• If your sellers ignore Marketplace, the fix is simple: translate co-sell + Marketplace into MEDDPICC language they already use every day.

• Firefighting may save a deal, but only systems scale a motion. Too many teams use Marketplace for last-minute closing—not as a repeatable Cloud GTM engine (the exact shift that drives adoption).

• 1-pager can speed Marketplace deals. A Partnerships leader with a FinOps background shares the customer-facing doc that turns “buy via Marketplace” into an easier internal yes.

• Alphabet hit $4T — and Apple chose Gemini (the new AI alliance playbook: “frenemies,” hybrid stacks, non-exclusive moats).

• A $2T divergence is reshaping software and Cloud GTM (hyperscalers added ~$2T in value while the SaaS basket fell ~13%).

But before we dive in:

Cloud GTM Leader Cohort 14 launches tomorrow (Jan 20 kickoff). If 2026 is the year you make Marketplace a real growth engine, this is your moment.
Join 300+ alliance leaders who’ve transformed their Cloud GTM motions on AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud.

Join Cohort 14 (Starts Jan 20)

Make Marketplace MEDDPICC-Native (So Sellers Actually Use It)

Marketplace doesn’t need a new sales motion. It needs to become MEDDPICC-native. Most sellers already have a language for qualifying and closing deals.

Alliance teams often introduce Marketplace + co-sell as a separate track: new forms, new steps, new stakeholders, new “ask alliances.”

So even when a customer can buy through Marketplace, the default path wins: the one sellers already know.

The unlock is simple: translate Marketplace + co-sell into MEDDPICC so sellers feel like they’re running their normal process — just with more leverage.

Here’s a mapping we discussed in our recent webinars:

Metrics - 𝐌

Quantify the value of your ISV solution and the advantages of buying via marketplaces (using cloud commits, consolidated billing, less admin overhead for the customer’s finance team).

For sellers, marketplaces can unlock faster growth, efficiency and deployment.

But don’t just say “efficiency.” Use hard industry/internal data (see my previous posts, etc).

Economic Buyer - 𝐄

Your champion might be in the business unit, but the budget authority often sits elsewhere.

Use hyperscaler reach to understand the buyer’s commercial strategy, cloud commits, and who owns them. Clouds can also help you access higher levels (CIO/CTO) when the case is clear.

Decision Criteria - 𝐃

Understand how your prospect reviews, shortlists, and finalizes purchases. Collaborate with cloud teams to align decision criteria with Marketplace benefits.

Example: if “cost reduction” is a key criterion (and the customer has commits), frame the deal not as new spend, but as a way to use committed spend that may otherwise go unused.

Decision Process - 𝐃

Teams lose time because they map the approval chain too late.

Co-sell helps here: hyperscalers see customer buying patterns across accounts and can guide sellers through the internal decision-making maze.

When you engage cloud teams, share your status and specific requests (e.g., “Help us validate the legal review timeline”), not generic “any help is appreciated.”

Paper Process - 𝐏

Marketplace workflows can bypass traditional signature delays and grant user access faster. Push for standard marketplace agreements to cut redlines and shorten legal cycles.

Also: educate sellers to identify who can accept private offers early, not at the last moment.

Identify Pain - 𝐈

Work backwards from the customer’s goals and constraints: modernization, migration, etc. to understand how your solution fits best.

Co-sell can help connect your solution to cloud (and AI) priorities and frame the pain in the customer’s language.

Champion - 𝐂

When you cultivate champion/s inside the customer org, use hyperscalers to map stakeholders in areas like Security, Apps, AI and Procurement to strengthen internal support.

If your internal champion goes silent, cloud sellers can sometimes help to re-engage the account from a different angle.

Could your sellers explain how Marketplace fits in MEDDPICC without asking alliances?

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Stop Firefighting Deals. Build a Cloud GTM System

If Marketplace only shows up at the end of the deal, it’s not a GTM motion. It’s firefighting.

It may feel productive, but it doesn’t compound.

And many teams stay stuck because they “perform” all quarter — and “train/build the system” one day at SKO/QBR.

Here’s the contrast I keep seeing across ISVs: firefighting vs building a repeatable Cloud GTM system.

Firefighting deals

• Marketplace comes up at Stage 5/6: “Can we push this through Marketplace?”

• Sellers ping alliances: “Need a private offer ASAP”

• Cloud rep gets a messy co-sell request: no buyer context, no clear ask

• Customer procurement involved in the last week: “Who can accept the private offer?”

• The “win” depends on one operator who knows the maze

It creates chaos:

• Unpredictable outcomes

• Sellers conclude: “Marketplace is extra work”

• Cloud teams get flooded with low-quality asks (“spray and pray”)

• Zero compounding: the next deal starts from scratch

Building a Repeatable System

• Marketplace identified as a default path early (Stage 2/3 check)

• Sales drives the motion; alliances enable + orchestrate where needed (not “save” deals)

• Sales talk track + checklists is MEDDPICC-native

• Deal sharing is structured: status + next step + specific asks

• Procurement + private offer approver identified before endgame

• Cross-functional support is pre-wired: Finance (comp neutral + rev rec), Ops (automations), Product (marketplace packaging), Marketing

It builds leverage:

• Faster cycles, less noise

• Higher adoption across the sales team

• Better co-sell response from hyperscalers

• Real compounding: every deal makes the motion stronger

Firefighting saves a deal. Systems scale a motion.

Don’t treat learning and system-building as the opposite of “performing.”

It’s the engine behind performance.

Scalable Cloud GTM system includes:

People: reps know the play; alliances enable and reinforce it; ops support it, finance/legal aren’t surprised later

Enablement: onboarding + refreshers + call templates + deal reviews that teach the motion

Process: stage rules, checklists, automation workflows

Cadence: enablement, co-sell rhythms + always-on channel for questions

Tools: CRM automations, templates, structured co-sell submissions

A simple gut-check:

• Most teams: 90% firefight / 10% build

• Scaling teams: 70% execute / 30% build the system

Reality check (baseline B2B):

Salesforce’s State of Sales says reps spend only ~28–30% of their week actually selling (the rest is admin + internal work).

Seismic found that without enablement, sellers spend ~10 hours/week just searching for content.

If that’s true in “normal sales,” it’s usually worse in Marketplace motions that don’t have a system.

Are you building your repeatable Cloud GTM system?

Ready to transform your growth on cloud marketplaces?

Join our 5-week course for Alliance and Cloud GTM leaders and build your repeatable marketplace + co-sell growth engine on AWS, Microsoft or Google Cloud.

Cloud GTM Leader Cohort 14 kicks off on Jan 20!

Enroll in Cloud GTM Leader (Jan 20)

1-Pager That Turns ‘Buy on AWS Marketplace’ Into a Yes

Some of the best Marketplace GTM templates come from… former finance leaders who learned Cloud GTM.

Because they know exactly what procurement needs to hear.

Because when you’ve lived in finance, you don’t describe Marketplace as “another channel.”

You describe it as what it really is: A procurement + budget unlock that can accelerate deals if the buyer can explain it internally.

One of our Cloud GTM Leader alumni, Gital Schneider, showed a great example.

Gital started at Sisense leading Cloud FinOps. Then she got pulled into Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace work, saw the momentum up close, moved into Alliances, and is now Head of Partnerships.

Sisense is an AI-powered embedded analytics company, currently expanding its ecosystem and growing on AWS Marketplace.

“Small” problem that blocks real Marketplace deals

A seller says: “You can buy us via AWS Marketplace.”

The customer asks internally: How does it work? Why would we? What changes for procurement and billing?

Most companies hand-wave this conversation.

But the champion is rarely a Marketplace expert. So the deal stalls. Not because the customer doesn’t want the product, but because they can’t explain this path with confidence.

Sisense’s fix: a one-pager that translates Marketplace into buyer language.

Gital built a one-page customer-facing doc that is basically a procurement/FinOps translation layer for AWS Marketplace.

It might sound trivial. It’s not. Because Sisense saw AWS Marketplace deals going >20% faster through the sales cycle.

What their one-pager covers (and what you can copy)

It’s written in customer procurement language, not partner language.

1️⃣ Use existing AWS commitments

Purchases count toward AWS spend commitments.

This makes finance people pay attention.

2️⃣ Faster procurement and onboarding

Often approved faster due to pre-approved vendor status, simplified terms, and streamlined onboarding.

Speed is key for everyone.

3️⃣ Consolidated billing

The subscription shows up on the AWS bill.

One invoice, one process, fewer vendor setup headaches.

4️⃣ AWS financing

Options like “buy now, pay later” and flexible terms, while still counting the full value toward commitments.

For many buyers, this is the bridge between “want” and “can buy now.”

5️⃣ Cloud credits and incentives

Eligible purchases may qualify for AWS deal credits and programs.

Pro tip (the line most sellers forget)

Ask if the customer has unused commitments or a “use it or lose it” dynamic. Marketplace can unlock budget and speed at the same time.

The takeaway for Alliance leaders

Most Marketplace content is written for sellers. This one-pager is written for the buyer’s internal teams: finance, procurement.

That’s why it works.

If you don’t have your own version of this one-pager, build one.

Because it’s deal plumbing - the kind of asset that turns Marketplace into a repeatable buying motion.

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Google Hits $4T. Apple Picks Gemini. The New AI Alliance Playbook

Alphabet Inc. crossed a $4T market cap last week and landed the kind of alliance that reshapes an ecosystem: Apple. This deal shows how platform alliances will be built in the AI era.

What happened

Apple signed a multi-year agreement where parts of Apple Intelligence (including a revamped Siri) will run on Google’s Gemini models and Google Cloud infrastructure.

Apple called Google’s AI the “most capable foundation” for future Apple Foundation Models.

The partnership is explicitly non-exclusive, leaving Apple room to rebalance with OpenAI and others—but Google just won the flagship slot in the world’s most valuable consumer ecosystem.

And it helped push Alphabet past the $4T market cap threshold, joining Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft in the four-comma club.

What this deal means & what alliance teams can learn:

“Frenemy” alliances work when you decouple functions

Google and Apple are fierce rivals across mobile OS, browsers, and hardware.

Yet they were able to compartmentalize competition and partner where it mattered most: best-in-class AI models + infrastructure capability.

When the functional value is high enough, the rivalry becomes manageable.

Hybrid AI is becoming the dominant architecture

The biggest partnerships may not be pure cloud offloads. They’ll be split-stack: sensitive context stays on-device or in a private cloud, while heavy AI workloads run on hyperscaler infrastructure.

Control + privacy on one side, frontier capability + scale on the other.

The “default AI provider” narrative is weakening

The deal is framed as non-exclusive. Translation: even the largest platforms will run multi-model stacks.

In AI, you’re competing for workload share, not permanent exclusivity.

Privacy is table stakes, not a feature

Apple’s insistence on keeping core data processing local is the real constraint for many enterprise deployments too.

Winning large alliances increasingly requires flexible deployment options and credible privacy guarantees, not just raw model quality.

Platform leverage compounds

This is validation of Google’s vertically integrated AI stack: custom TPUs, Gemini models, and cloud infrastructure working as one system.

It also gives Google’s enterprise partner narrative a major credibility boost.

Alphabet’s $4T milestone reflects a sharpened AI focus, improving Gemini reception, and custom silicon — with the Apple deal as the capstone.

For GTM leaders, the takeaway is simple: build flexible, high-trust partnerships that can win in a hybrid, multi-model AI world.

$2T Divergence: Cloud Hyperscalers Up ~$2T While SaaS Struggles

If you feel like the last 12 months in SaaS have been hard, you aren’t imagining it. The market is uneven, and the data is stark so it feels like a major divergence.

I looked at public market performance over the last 12 months (Jan 2025 – Jan 2026), comparing the Hyperscalers against the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index.

”SaaS Recession” feels real

The BVP Emerging Cloud Index—which tracks a composite of ~75 of the most promising public cloud SaaS companies (see logos) - is down ~13% over the last year.

While the broader Nasdaq rose ~20%, the cloud SaaS basket didn’t just lag; it actually shrank.

At the same time, the hyperscalers moved the other way:

• Alphabet Inc. +69%

• Microsoft +7%

• Amazon +7%

Quick math:

Today, Alphabet + Microsoft + Amazon are worth ~$10T combined.

Based on their 12-month stock moves, they added roughly ~$2T of market value over the last year.

Now compare that with the SaaS cohort: BVP’s index is down ~13%. That’s ~$0.3T erased.

So while the SaaS universe shrunk, hyperscaler platforms grew — massively.

In fact, they added value roughly equal to the entire BVP index, which represents the cloud SaaS universe with ~$2.1T of total market cap.

Not all hyperscalers grew equally. And yes, these are diversified businesses. Same with SaaS companies - some are really winning now. But the directional trend has been now consistent for a couple of years:

Markets are pricing in that AI and cloud are the two growth engines — and the value is accruing around the platforms that control distribution, drive AI adoption and host customer data.

And here’s the part we shouldn’t ignore:

Those same hyperscaler platforms are now reinvesting $300B+ per year into AI infrastructure.

So we’re not just looking at today’s market caps — markets are pricing the future scale of these ecosystems.

This also isn’t just “AI hype.” It’s wallet consolidation.

CIOs and CFOs are under immense pressure to rationalize their stacks. They’re cutting discretionary point solutions and doubling down on platforms where they already have committed cloud spend.

Does it all mean that SaaS is dying? Not quite.

SaaS is changing and realigning to an AI-first world:

• Buyers are consolidating spend

• Point solutions face more scrutiny

• Platforms that control data, distribution, and budgets have more gravity

• You need to become AI-first, and it’s actually non-trivial

The top alliance leaders know this.

They grow through hyperscaler marketplaces, attaching to budgets that keeps growing: $531B in cloud commits.

They’re treating cloud alliances and marketplaces as a core GTM motion to accelerate SaaS realignment and tap into AI/cloud boom.

If 2026 is the year when you want Marketplace to become a real growth channel - join our cohort starting on January 20.

During the 5 weeks we’ll break down top marketplace + co-sell growth strategies on AWS, Microsoft and GCP with 10+ top alliance leaders.

Join Cohort 14 (Starts Jan 20)

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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In today’s newsletter:

• Datadog’s $2B+ marketplace enablement playbook that helped to scale from zero partnership motion in 2019 to $2B+ AWS Marketplace revenue (9 tactics you can copy)

• Gartner’s bold prediction: 90% of B2B buying intermediated by AI agents by 2028 — and why AWS’s new Agent Mode + Express Private Offers prove marketplaces are already building that future

• $527B AI capex forecast for 2026: Goldman Sachs shows hyperscaler spending isn’t slowing (5 implications for your Cloud GTM strategy)

But before we dive in, in 2 hours (Jan 12, 9-10am PT) we’re hosting an online workshop with Laura Ripans, Senior Director, Global Cloud Alliances at Datadog (one of the elite $2B Marketplace Club members).

We’ll break down the 5 breakthrough signals from 2025 — and the 2026 playbook to scale GTM on marketplaces. Join us in 2 hours.

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This kicks off our 2026 programming and leads into Cohort 14 of Cloud GTM Leader course starting January 20th.

Datadog’s $2B+ Marketplace Enablement Playbook: Copy it

When Laura Ripans joined Datadog in 2019 as cloud alliances employee #1, the company had zero partnership motion.

Today, she’s helped build the enablement engine behind Datadog’s $2B+ in AWS Marketplace revenue alone — and she recently shared her playbook in our Cloud GTM Leader course.

The core problem most teams miss:

Your Marketplace motion won’t scale until every seller can answer: “The customer wants to buy through Marketplace — what do I do now?” …and understand why it’s in their interest to learn this early (not at procurement).

Here are 9 takeaways that you should copy from Laura Ripans, Senior Director, Global Cloud Alliances at Datadog:

1️⃣ Enablement is the critical job of cloud alliances

“Enablement is our job… if we don’t do it, no one’s going to do it.”

Not a side project. The best alliance leaders run it as a deliberate operating cadence.

2️⃣ Start with the buyer’s money — not just your product

“Follow the money.” Train sellers to ask earlier than they’re used to: do you have cloud commits (EDP/PPA, MACC)?

If your team can’t speak that language, Marketplace shows up as a late-stage surprise.

3️⃣ Put alliances into onboarding

Laura runs this in new hire training so every seller starts with: there’s a cloud alliances team, there’s co-sell, and there’s Marketplace.

4️⃣ Create a “home” for repeatability

Slack channel + pinned assets + templates. Her phrase: make yourself “more extendable” when demand exceeds bandwidth.

5️⃣ Measure enablement by outcomes, not just attendance

One tactic: ask everyone in the room to bring one co-sellable account.

Then do the “forensics” later: “I did this Lunch & Learn in Sept… 6 months later we got 6 wins.” Tie activity to pipeline.

6️⃣ Teach sellers to prep before cloud calls

A simple one-pager before any cloud call: overview, pain hypothesis, “why now,” blockers, who you need access to, and one next step.

Not perfect — just prepared.

7️⃣ External cloud enablement is a flywheel, not a one-off

“Build mindshare, build trust, build momentum — repeat often.”

And if you’re doing it in-person: get a manager sponsor, or you risk the “nobody showed up” scenario.

8️⃣ Don’t sell your product to the cloud. Sell customer problem

“You’re not there to sell your product… talk about customer pain.”

Nobody has an “APM problem.” They have “our shopping cart stopped taking money on Cyber Monday.”

9️⃣ Design co-sell calls to be fast and focused

“A+ is: get on the call efficiently, get off the call in time (maybe even early), and you’ve got one next step.”

The result?

Datadog scaled from 1,000 to 7,000 employees with $2B in revenue on AWS marketplace alone, while growing rapidly on Microsoft and Google Cloud too.

Marketplace is now embedded in how they sell — not a special project.

Join live workshop with Laura Ripans (Jan 12, 9-10 am PT) — perfect timing to start 2026 with a clear Marketplace growth plan.

[In 2 Hours]: Inside $2B Club — 5 Marketplace Signals Winners Use to Win 2026

Recent AWS re:Invent and Microsoft Ignite sent one clear message back-to-back: marketplaces are the most powerful GTM scaling engines for enterprise software.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) cited 4–5X larger deals and up to 40% net-new customers. Microsoft highlighted a $6.26 marketplace partner multiplier.

The marketplace bar is moving quickly: $1B was the headline, now $2B in revenue is the top benchmark.

And the $2B Marketplace Club is forming fast — with Datadog among the elite selling billions via marketplaces.

Today (Monday, Jan 12 at 9-10 am PT) we’re hosting online workshop to look inside $2B Club strategies and distill 5 marketplace signals winners use to win in 2026.

We’ll break down:

• The 5 breakthrough signals from 2025 (and what they mean for your 2026 plan)

• Practical GTM + co-sell strategies the field actually runs with

• 2026 blueprint to move from insights → execution (and avoid the common traps that stall teams)

Learn transformations from top operators:

Laura Ripans, Senior Director, Global Cloud Alliances at Datadog has built one of the most successful cloud alliance programs in the industry and has been recognized 5 times in CRN’s Women of the Channel.

Join us today (Jan 12, 9-10am PT) to get the 2026 Cloud GTM growth playbook

Learn the patterns winners are using to turn Marketplace into a repeatable growth engine.

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See you in 2 hours!

P.S. This free workshop kicks off our 2026 programming and leads into Cohort 14 of Cloud GTM Leader starting January 20.

In agent-led buying, your marketplace offer becomes your homepage

In November, Gartner made a bold prediction: by 2028, 90% of B2B buying will be intermediated by AI agents - pushing $15T via “agent exchanges”. Sounds futuristic… until you look at cloud marketplaces.

In December, AWS Marketplace shipped what that future looks like:

• Agent Mode: conversational discovery built for software procurement

• Express Private Offers: custom private pricing that can be generated in minutes, not weeks.

That’s procurement being reprogrammed from “people reading pages” → “machines comparing offers”.

Agent optimization is just one practical implication that your product needs to be easy for software (not just humans) to understand and transact.

Here’s why cloud marketplaces are already ahead of the curve

1️⃣ Trust becomes the moat

Agents will route B2B spend through places with identity, billing, approvals, and compliance gates.

That’s what cloud marketplaces provide: a trusted wrapper around third-party software.

And we’re already seeing marketplaces evolve into “stores” not just for apps - but for AI tools, agents and services.

2️⃣ Your marketplace page becomes the AI decision screen

Agents don’t care about your homepage only.

They care about structured inputs: reviews, packaging, price logic, terms, activation steps.

Marketplaces force that discipline today. The sales cycle compresses — by default.

The slowest part of enterprise deals is often not “interest”, it’s procurement: supplier setup, legal, approvals, back-and-forth pricing.

Marketplaces collapse that path — and now even negotiation is getting automated: standard deals handled quickly; complex ones routed to sales.

AWS Express Private Offers example: sellers can preconfigure rate cards, qualification criteria, and deal parameters for SaaS contracts, so eligible buyers can receive an automated private offer in minutes.

3️⃣ Buyers were already asking for rep-free

61% of B2B buyers told Gartner they prefer a rep-free experience. Agents don’t create this behavior — they scale it.

But it’s not “rep-less”. It’s “rep where it matters”. Human sales don’t disappear.

They move up-stack to: problem framing, risk, high stakes decision, architecture, and the non-standard deal.

If you sell through cloud marketplaces, 5 things to audit this quarter:

1. Is your listing “machine-readable” (clear packaging, pricing rules, terms, proof)?

2. Can a buyer go from discovery → purchase without weeks of emails?

3. What “verifiable data” proves trust + value (security posture, outcomes, adoption signals)?

4. Do you support fast, controlled custom pricing (without manual chaos)?

5. Is activation/provisioning simple enough for an automated flow (if not, are you building it)?

The teams that win will have the cleanest inputs both for humans and AI - and the fastest path to transact.

Are you adjusting your marketplace GTM for an agent-driven buying flow?

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$527B Capex Forecast for 2026: 5 Cloud GTM Takeaways

Goldman Sachs's recent research has one message: the AI buildout isn’t slowing — the pressure to monetize is rising. But if investors now reward capex that turns into revenue, hyperscalers will pressure-test every GTM motion.

Marketplace-first + co-sell to drive consumption and AI will become even more “core.”

Consensus 2026 capex for the AI hyperscalers keeps rising. It’s now $527B (up from $465B at the start of Q3 earnings). And consensus has been underestimating spend for 2 years (20% implied growth; vs >50% actual).

For context: Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle spent $105B+ in capex in calendar Q3 2025 alone.

Here are 5 implications for Cloud GTM leaders:

1️⃣ The constraint is not cash. It’s capacity + investor patience

The real constraints are “supply bottlenecks or investor appetite,” not cash flow / balance sheet capacity.

Alliance-leader translation:

Hyperscalers are still in “build mode,” and they’re not slowing because they can’t spend — they’ll slow only if they hit supply bottlenecks or if markets force discipline.

That’s a very different planning environment for partner GTM than a normal IT cycle.

2️⃣ When spend is this high, monetization becomes a core metric

Investors are now rewarding companies that show a clear link between capex and revenues.

So hyperscalers will push harder on the monetization:

• marketplace-first deals

• co-sell tied to consumption

• attach plays that pull through GPU + data + platform usage

3️⃣ Hyperscalers are not moving as one

Average stock price correlation across AI hyperscalers fell from ~80% to ~20% since June — as investors separate “spend” from “revenue outcomes.”

Goldman highlights dispersion: investors aren’t rewarding all big spenders equally; confidence in revenue outcomes matters.

Partner takeaway: expect more selectivity in who hyperscalers amplify.

Translation: hyperscalers will increasingly prioritize partners who:

• drive measurable consumption

• have repeatable enterprise wins

• show fast time-to-value (and low-friction procurement)

4️⃣ The spotlight is moving from infra to platforms and apps

Goldman sees AI monetization now involve AI platform companies (database + dev tools) and expects the next phases to include AI “productivity beneficiaries,” not just infrastructure.

5️⃣ We’re still early in the buildout cycle

AI capex is at 0.8% of GDP now vs 1.5% peaks in prior tech cycles; Goldman says capex would need to reach $700B in 2026 to match the late-90s telecom peak.

Meaning: more urgency, more building, more programs, more marketplace expansion.

If 2026 is “build mode,” partner leverage is to be the distribution + monetization engine: help hyperscalers to make buying simple, prove consumption impact, and remove friction in marketplace + co-sell. This is when you’ll likely see most support from them.

Research source

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Make 2026 Your Marketplace Growth Year: Join Cohort 14 Starting on January 20th

Enterprises have committed $531B to AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud — budgets you can tap into via cloud marketplaces. For SaaS and AI companies, Marketplace GTM can make or break scale in 2026.

The most advanced GTM orgs – from scaleups to public companies – are rewriting the rules. They’re using marketplaces and co-sell to scale revenue faster, compress sales cycles by 40-60%, and make buying frictionless.

Real results from real companies

Over the past two years, 300 alliance leaders have completed Cloud GTM Leader course and built this capability. Examples of what alumni have achieved:

• Launched from zero marketplace motion to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks

• Closed their first $1M+ marketplace deal and turned it into a repeatable motion

• Scaled marketplace revenue 4X YoY from an already high eight-figure base

These aren’t outliers. They’re alliance leaders who invested 5 weeks to master the frameworks, tactics and relationships that drive cloud GTM success.

What we master in 5 weeks:

• How to tap into cloud commits + marketplace buying processes

• Co-sell patterns with hyperscaler field teams that actually create pipeline

• How to position on marketplaces so sellers choose you among thousands of vendors

• Frameworks to align sales, product, finance, and ops around one cloud GTM plan

• How to accelerate deals with smart co-marketing (and more)

If 2026 is the year you want Marketplace to become a real growth channel — join our cohort starting on January 20.

Save Your Spot: Cohort 14

What alumni are saying

“I wish I had this knowledge before I started my role in the GTM department last year.”

“As someone who has built AWS alliances twice, driven marketplace success, and led cross-functional GTM motions, this program elevated my perspective and sharpened my thinking around cloud co-sell programs, marketplace motions, channel strategy, and scalable GTM frameworks. Highly recommend.”

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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2025 closed with cloud commits crossing $531B and marketplace revenue hitting new records. Now S&P Global Market Intelligence declares marketplaces the “app store of the GenAI era” — and the numbers show why 2026 is the year to scale with Cloud GTM.

In today’s newsletter:

• Key numbers that defined Cloud GTM in 2025: $531B in cloud commits, 62% net-new marketplace revenue (not deal shift), measurable marketplace multipliers — and the $2B Marketplace Club expanding fast

• S&P Global frames marketplaces as AI’s “predominant distribution network” — as 69% of enterprises plan to increase public cloud spend and S&P sizes the $60B AI opportunity for 2026

But before we dive in, we’re hosting an online workshop on January 12 with Laura Ripans, Senior Director, Global Cloud Alliances at Datadog (one of the elite $2B Marketplace Club members).

We’ll break down the 5 breakthrough signals from 2025 — and the 2026 playbook to scale GTM on marketplaces.

Save My Spot

This kicks off our 2026 programming and leads into Cohort 14 of Cloud GTM Leader course starting January 20th.

Cloud GTM 2025 /26: Year Defined By Numbers

Three numbers defined Cloud GTM in 2025: $531B, 62%, $2B

If you’re planning 2026, here are the shifts that mattered most — and how to apply them.

1️⃣ Cloud commits accelerated, crossing $500B in Q3

Customer committed spend on AWS + Microsoft Azure + Google Cloud crossed $531B (+$63B in Q3 alone).

Translation: more cloud marketplace deals now start with “we have commits to use” than before

2️⃣ The $2B Marketplace benchmark went mainstream

Snowflake did $2B on AWS Marketplace in 2025 alone - and now ~45% of its revenue runs through it.

Datadog crossed $2B on AWS Marketplace and Salesforce hit $3B.

Palo Alto Networks reached $2B on Google Cloud Marketplace, adding +$500M in ~8 months.

“$2B Marketplace Club” is forming fast: winners turned Marketplace into a repeatable revenue path.

Startups are growing on Marketplaces too (130% YoY startup growth per AWS), while companies like Vanta saw private offers grow 700% YoY.

3️⃣ Marketplace multiplier is now measurable economics

• Microsoft reported: Marketplace partners capture $6.26 in extra value for every $1 transacted (via Omdia).

• AWS: $7.13 in partner revenue for every $1 of AWS technology sold (total, not just MP).

• Google Cloud: $7.05 in partner revenue for every $1 of GCP consumption (total).

Translation: the “partner story” is now measurable on marketplaces, which are the best way to capture this multiplier. Marketplaces turn partner value into repeatable procurement + co-sell + services attach—at enterprise scale.

4️⃣ Hyperscalers started calling Marketplace what it is: a GTM engine

At re:Invent, AWS described Marketplace as “the most powerful GTM scaling engine”—citing up to 4–5X larger deals and up to 40% net-new customers for leading partners.

The message is clear: Marketplace isn’t an alliances-only project anymore. It’s a core route to revenue for the majority of software companies.

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5️⃣ Net-new revenue > deal shift (data is clear)

In our Q1’25 research, 62% of companies reported net-new revenue from marketplaces—not just shifted deals.

How? 94% of top performers engage hyperscaler field teams consistently.

If you’re still waiting because of “cannibalization risk,” you’re likely waiting on the wrong problem.

Our community grew in the middle of this shift

• 1M+ views of our marketplace / cloud GTM insights in 2025

• 1,000+ leaders joined our virtual and in-person events in SF, Vegas and London

• 5,000 leaders now read our newsletter weekly

• 300+ course alumni applying our marketplace GTM playbooks

• ~100 experts spoke at our events and courses

Thrilled to continue building, learning and sharing insights with all of you.

These insights shaped our 2026 playbook — and we’re breaking it down in detail on January 12.

Online Workshop: Inside $2B Club — 5 Marketplace Signals Winners Use to Win 2026

With recent AWS re:Invent + Microsoft Ignite back-to-back, one message is clear: marketplaces are the most powerful GTM scaling engines for enterprise software.

And the $2B Marketplace Club is forming fast — with Datadog among the elite selling billions via marketplaces.

Join us next week to get the 2026 Cloud GTM growth playbook.

In this session, we’ll break down:

• The 5 breakthrough signals from 2025 (and what they mean for your 2026 plan)

• Practical GTM + co-sell strategies the field actually runs with

• 2026 blueprint to move from insights → execution (and avoid the common traps that stall teams)

Learn transformations from top operators

Laura Ripans, Senior Director, Global Cloud Alliances at Datadog has built one of the most successful cloud alliance programs in the industry and has been recognized five times in CRN’s Women of the Channel.

She brings a multi-cloud perspective on building durable relationships with Microsoft and other hyperscalers — while keeping GTM anchored to customer outcomes.

Join us for on January 12th, 9-10am PT to get the 2026 Cloud GTM growth playbook

Save My Spot

P.S. This free workshop kicks off our 2026 programming and leads into Cohort 14 of Cloud GTM Leader starting January 20.

Marketplaces: “predominant distribution network” for enterprise AI

In 2026 “cloud marketplaces will solidify their role as the app store of the GenAI era” - latest S&P Global Market Intelligence research highlights. If you’re in alliances, that’s the clearest signal you need.

“The role of cloud marketplaces will expand as they become the predominant distribution network for enterprise AI functionality and capabilities….” - S&P underscores.

Here’s my breakdown of what they’re saying:

1️⃣ Marketplaces = “app store” for enterprise AI

Cloud marketplaces are framed as a place where:

• vendors + developers sell

• enterprises discover + procure

• integrators deliver advisory, implementation, optimization

Value exchange is clear: vendors monetize faster, buyers deploy faster, hyperscalers drive more consumption.

In AI era, what’s being distributed shifts to: models, data platforms, pre-defined agents, and enterprise AI software pre-integrated with cloud infrastructure.

Result? Marketplaces become the bridge between AI demand and AI supply.

2️⃣ Commit budgets create a flywheel

The report ties marketplaces to cloud spend commits: customers can use committed dollars to buy AI software, agents, and platforms.

Marketplaces fit AI especially well: GenAI projects are evolving fast, and buyers want to fund them with already-allocated budgets (commits) rather than net-new procurement cycles.

Marketplaces become the shortest path from “AI project” → “procurement” → “deployment”.

3️⃣ Partners: massive AI upside - in a world of co-opetition

Everyone is trying to own more layers of the AI stack (hyperscalers, neoclouds, hardware vendors, MSPs, ISVs, GSIs) — and S&P sizes the 2026 AI opportunity as a $60B market.

But two dynamics are happening in parallel:

“Most surveyed organizations will require considerable transformation of their IT environments over the next five years to support AI workloads at scale.”

AND:

“Alongside fierce competition, the market will also exhibit increased collaboration, partnerships, ecosystem development and acquisition/equity investment activity…”

Translation: massive services + solutions + partnerships opportunities while everyone is fighting for their place in the AI stack.

4️⃣ Cloud demand keeps rising

If someone says “cloud is slowing,” the workload data points the other way: companies are prioritizing public cloud for their innovations.

• 39% are deploying net new workloads to public cloud (top destination for new apps)

• 69% plan to increase public cloud spend (with AI/ML as the top driver)

• 78% are moving data between clouds (up from 40% last year), signaling a major maturing of the cloud ecosystem

What this means for Alliance leaders:

• Treat Marketplace as the key distribution rail (agents/apps + marketplace now converge)

• Package partner motions around “commit spend > marketplace purchase > services attach”

• Expect fiercer co-opetition — design your GTM to win on speed + integration

If you own alliances: what are you changing in your 2026 GTM because of this shift?

Source

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Make 2026 Your Marketplace Growth Year: Join Cohort 14 Starting on January 20th

Enterprises have committed $531B to AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud — budgets you can tap into via cloud marketplaces. For SaaS and AI companies, Marketplace GTM can make or break scale in 2026.

The most advanced GTM orgs – from scaleups to public companies – are rewriting the rules. They’re using marketplaces and co-sell to scale revenue faster, compress sales cycles by 40-60%, and make buying frictionless.

Real results from real companies

Over the past two years, 300 alliance leaders have completed Cloud GTM Leader course and built this capability. Examples of what alumni have achieved:

• Launched from zero marketplace motion to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks

• Closed their first $1M+ marketplace deal and turned it into a repeatable motion

• Scaled marketplace revenue 4X YoY from an already high eight-figure base

These aren’t outliers. They’re alliance leaders who invested 5 weeks to master the frameworks, tactics and relationships that drive cloud GTM success.

What we master in 5 weeks:

• How to tap into cloud commits + marketplace buying processes

• Co-sell patterns with hyperscaler field teams that actually create pipeline

• How to position on marketplaces so sellers choose you among thousands of vendors

• Frameworks to align sales, product, finance, and ops around one cloud GTM plan

• How to accelerate deals with smart co-marketing (and more)

If 2026 is the year you want Marketplace to become a real growth channel — join our cohort starting on January 20.

Save Your Spot: Cohort 14

What alumni are saying

“I wish I had this knowledge before I started my role in the GTM department last year.”

“As someone who has built AWS alliances twice, driven marketplace success, and led cross-functional GTM motions, this program elevated my perspective and sharpened my thinking around cloud co-sell programs, marketplace motions, channel strategy, and scalable GTM frameworks. Highly recommend.”

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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This week:

• Snowflake crossed $2B on AWS Marketplace in 2025 — and now ~45% of revenue runs through a single marketplace (the playbook + economics behind selling AI on Marketplace).

• Palo Alto hit $2B on Google Cloud Marketplace — adding +$500M in ~8 months (why the “$2B club” is forming fast — and resetting the benchmark).

• AI partnerships are starting to mirror cloud partnerships — multimillion commit-style deals and joint GTM motions are becoming the norm for scaling enterprise AI ($200M is the example below).

Before we dive in:
If you want to turn these signals into a repeatable Marketplace GTM plan and make 2026 your Marketplace growth year, Cohort 14 of the Cloud GTM Leader course starts Jan 20. Details + the newsletter-reader promo code are below.

Save Your Spot: Cohort 14

Inside Snowflake’s $2B Marketplace playbook

Snowflake hit $2B on AWS Marketplace in 2025 alone, setting a new benchmark.

Let’s look underneath: ~45% of Snowflake’s revenue now flows through a single marketplace, while the company has committed $730M upstream to cloud infrastructure and an AI model provider.

This is the new Cloud GTM playbook and economics in full view.

Marketplace is becoming the dominant rail for AI

As Snowflake grew 29% YoY in Q3, its CEO highlighted they “surpassed $2 billion in sales through AWS Marketplace in a single calendar year” and won 14 AWS Partner awards.

With ARR at $4.6B, $2B in AWS Marketplace sales positions Marketplace as the dominant rail for Snowflake. For many large enterprises, “buying Snowflake” is increasingly financially synonymous with buying it via AWS Marketplace. (They grow on other clouds too).

Snowflake also reported that AI influenced 50% of bookings in Q3, with 28% of new use cases incorporating AI.

Putting these together: Marketplace is becoming the commercial backbone for selling AI products.

The economics: hyperscalers win when the workload scale

Snowflake disclosed third-party cloud infrastructure expenses were 72% of cost of product revenue, up from 64% a year ago.

They just signed a new $530M cloud infrastructure commitment (Nov 2025–Oct 2030).

Translation: cloud is the biggest cost line for many software companies.

When Snowflake expands, underlying cloud consumption expands — which is why hyperscalers invest so heavily in Marketplace + co-sell.

AI agentic partnerships are starting to look like cloud partnerships

Snowflake announced an $200M Anthropic partnership that “brings native model availability into Snowflake and introduces a new joint go-to-market motion designed to accelerate enterprise AI adoption.”

Separately, they disclosed a renewed AI service provider agreement: $200M in commits over 3 years, ramping $50M → $70M → $80M per year.

The AI deal (Anthropic? given the matching amount) mirrors hyperscaler commit structures: multi-year, annual step-ups. It also signals the confidence and growth assumptions Snowflake is modeling in AI adoption.

This 3-way relationship — ISV commits to hyperscaler, ISV commits to AI provider, AI provider runs on hyperscaler — is becoming the standard.

Snowflake is treating foundation model providers the way they treat cloud providers: strategic infrastructure partners with joint GTM motions, not just API vendors.

New ‘$2B club’ is forming — and it changes the benchmark

Just 10 months ago, crossing $1B annually on a single marketplace was headline news. CrowdStrike hit it in Feb, Splunk in April, Salesforce crossed $2B in Q1 and $3B recently.

Now Snowflake is setting a $2B/year bar, as category leaders keep scaling.

This shows the power of joint GTM with hyperscalers, AI-fueled growth, and how transformative cloud marketplaces are for the software industry.

It changes how you design your GTM: Marketplace stops being “optional” and becomes the standard path.

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Palo Alto x Google Cloud: $2B Marketplace crossed

Just as we’ve been tracking the “$2B Marketplace club”, Palo Alto Networks + Google Cloud announced a partnership expansion — and PANW crossing $2B in sales on Google Cloud Marketplace.

Here are the key insights I took from it:

1️⃣ The pace is accelerating as GCP is scaling a billion-scale Marketplace motion

Palo Alto Networks (PANW) $2B is cumulative — but it comes quickly after the $1.5B milestone shared at Google Cloud Next in April.

That’s +$500M in ~8 months, or roughly ~$750M/year annualized.

Not a “$1B/year club” yet — but it’s moving that way. Impressive.

2️⃣ Co-sell is downstream of co-build

The headline isn’t only the expansion — it’s also 75+ joint integrations.

Marketplace sales and co-sell don’t scale because you have a listing.

They scale when you ship pre-vetted, engineered customer outcomes — deeply integrated with the buyer’s stack and data.

3️⃣ The wedge is “secure agentic AI” (not generic AI)

The expansion is anchored to the agent stack: securing AI workloads on Vertex AI / Agent Engine, plus securing Google’s Agent Developer Kit (ADK), across posture, runtime, and model security.

Translation: partner roadmaps are being tied to cloud AI primitives — packaging security as an essential layer of the AI (and cloud) platform.

4️⃣ “Strategic partner” now includes consumption alignment

Alongside Marketplace growth, Palo Alto said it will migrate key internal workloads to Google Cloud under a new multi-billion-dollar agreement (Reuters reported a source calling it “approaching $10B,” though execs didn’t confirm it).

One proven data point: Palo Alto disclosed $6.38B in cloud infrastructure commitments on its books as of the end of October, with $2.5B extending to 2031 and later.

This gives you a sense of the size of deals being signed around cloud + AI — not just by hyperscalers, but by the largest ISVs.

PANW is ~$9.2B in revenue with $15.5B customer RPO.

Insight: the fact that their cloud commitments (~$6B+) are becoming comparable to PANW customer RPO (~$15B) is a fascinating ratio. It shows that for every $1 of software sold, there’s a significant underlying investment in compute/AI infrastructure.

5️⃣ The backdrop is driving this shift

Palo Alto’s newly published cloud security survey of enterprises reads like a cloud & AI tailwind:

• 7 out of 10 enterprises “operate in extensive cloud integration or fully cloud-native states”

• Multicloud is default (65% use 3+ clouds)

• 75% already have AI systems in production (another 23% plan to within 12 months)

• Enterprises want platformization, not more tools — which is exactly where PANW is pushing hardest

If you lead alliances, the question isn’t “do we have Marketplace presence?”

It’s: do we have joint outcomes, mapped to the hyperscaler narrative/AI stack, that a customer can buy (with commits) and deploy with minimal integration work?

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Make 2026 Your Marketplace Growth Year: Join Cohort 14 Starting on January 20th

Enterprises have committed $531B to AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud — budgets you can tap into via cloud marketplaces. For SaaS and AI companies, Marketplace GTM can make or break scale in 2026.

The most advanced GTM orgs – from scaleups to public companies – are rewriting the rules. They’re using marketplaces and co-sell to scale revenue faster, compress sales cycles by 40-60%, and make buying frictionless.

Real results from real companies

Over the past two years, 300 alliance leaders have completed Cloud GTM Leader course and built this capability. Examples of what alumni have achieved:

• Launched from zero marketplace motion to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks

• Closed their first $1M+ marketplace deal and turned it into a repeatable motion

• Scaled marketplace revenue 4X YoY from an already high eight-figure base

These aren’t outliers.

They’re alliance leaders who invested 5 weeks to master the frameworks, tactics and relationships that drive cloud GTM success.

What we master in 5 weeks:

• How to tap into cloud commits + marketplace buying processes

• Co-sell patterns with hyperscaler field teams that actually create pipeline

• How to position on marketplaces so sellers choose you among thousands of vendors

• Frameworks to Align sales, product, finance, and ops around one cloud GTM plan

• How to accelerate deals with smart co-marketing (and more)

What’s included

• 10 expert sessions with VP-level marketplace & alliance leaders from category-leading SaaS companies and hyperscalers

• 5 weekly masterminds to workshop your strategy and challenges with peers

• Slack community with 300 alliance leaders

• Frameworks, templates, and playbooks companies typically pay consultants to build

Newsletter reader price lock (through Dec 31)

As a thank-you to newsletter readers, I’m holding last year’s price for the January cohort: $599 (instead of $649) — valid through Dec 31 2025.

Next cohort starts Jan 20. Use code NLNY599 at checkout.

Save Your Spot: Cohort 14

If 2026 is the year you want Marketplace to become a real growth channel — this is the cleanest window to join at the lower rate.

What alumni are saying

“I wish I had this knowledge before I started my role in the GTM department last year.”

“As someone who has built AWS alliances twice, driven marketplace success, and led cross-functional GTM motions, this program elevated my perspective and sharpened my thinking around cloud co-sell programs, marketplace motions, channel strategy, and scalable GTM frameworks. Highly recommend.”

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward this newsletter to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

Share

This week:

• Marketplace adoption jumps from 34% → 40% in the latest KeyBanc survey — even smaller SaaS companies increasingly see marketplaces and ecosystems as a primary lead source

• Zscaler recently crossed $1B on AWS Marketplace and is already planning the next phase — highlights from our London re:Invent debrief on what Cloud GTM leaders are prioritizing right now.

• Riot Games targets 90% of software procurement via Marketplace — after 935% first-year growth and cutting cycles from 100+ days to ~30, here’s how enterprise marketplace buyers actually think.
  

Before we dive in:
If you want to turn these signals into a repeatable Marketplace GTM plan and make 2026 your Marketplace growth year, Cohort 14 of the Cloud GTM Leader course starts Jan 13. Details + the newsletter-reader promo code are below.

Cloud GTM Leader: Cohort 14

Marketplace adoption in SaaS is rising: from 34% to 40%

Marketplace adoption as an indirect sales strategy in SaaS is climbing from 34% to 40% - while reliance on tech partners is also rising. If you still think “marketplaces are for later, when we’re bigger” - this survey suggests the opposite.

KeyBanc Capital Markets + Sapphire Ventures recently published their 2025 SaaS Survey.

It’s especially relevant for alliance leaders because the median company is only $23.3M ARR, with respondents spanning < $10M to > $50M ARR.

These aren’t traditionally channel-heavy orgs… yet their go-to-market (GTM) center of gravity is shifting.

Here’s what stood out for me for marketplace + channel:

1️⃣ Ecosystems + marketplaces are becoming a primary lead lever

“2025 saw an acceleration of companies’ reliance on ecosystems and marketplaces as a primary lead source…” - underscored Dave Wilner, Operating Partner of Sapphire Ventures

2️⃣ Marketplace adoption is rising as an indirect sales strategy

• Marketplace adoption: 34% (2025) → 40% (2026)

• Tech partnerships: 60% → 66%

• SIs: 40% → 42%

Marketplaces are already used by over a third of companies surveyed — and they’re growing fast, catching up with other ecosystem channels.

3️⃣ Channel is still “small” in ARR… which is why the trend matters

New ARR mix — how companies get revenue:

• Field sales: 56%

• Inside sales: 28%

• Channel/Partnerships: 11%

• Web/self-serve: 3%

The report highlights a shift toward channel/partnerships in 2025/26 at the expense of inside sales.

4️⃣ Companies want ecosystem leverage without building huge teams

Channel/Partnership Managers are only 6% of sales headcount in this dataset.

Practically, this means ~1 person below $10M ARR, 2 below $50M, and 3 at ~$50M.

If your partner team feels understaffed, you’re not alone.

Businesses expect advantage to come not from “more partner managers,” but from tighter partner + marketplace leverage.

5️⃣ Net-new economics are getting brutal

New-only CAC payback hit 37 months in 2024 (up from 31 months in 2022).

That’s why higher-intent routes (marketplaces, co-sell, partner referrals) are now critical — they can compress payback by tapping existing budgets + trusted paths.

6️⃣ AI is accelerating pricing complexity (and marketplaces benefit)

~50% of respondents are AI-native or AI-enabled. The rest are AI-interested.

Among AI-native/enabled respondents: 67% monetize AI; strategies split 58% subscription / 25% hybrid / 17% usage-based.

As pricing gets more complex, marketplaces + partners get more strategic because packaging and procurement become part of “the product.”

💡 For alliance leaders:

Marketplaces are becoming a distribution + customer acquisition engine earlier in the company lifecycle - exactly when teams are lean and efficiency pressure is high.

Curious: Is your 2026 plan built around scaling this channel?

Source

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Insights from our Re:Invent Strategic Debrief in London

When a company like Zscaler crosses $1B on AWS Marketplace and is already planning the next phase of adoption, it shows how quickly Marketplace is reshaping GTM.

Last week in London we wrapped our final in-person session of the year with ISV alliance and cloud GTM leaders.

They joined our insightful speakers Phil Soane (AWS), Vineet Parmar (Zscaler) and Manesh Raveendran (Spektra SaaSify)

Here are a few signals that stood out:

1️⃣ Marketplace is becoming “normal” for sellers

Zscaler shared how Marketplace is now built into how their sellers think. Their analysis confirmed that deals are in fact larger via AWS Marketplace and close faster.

Sellers see it as a way to unlock more customers and budget, not only a procurement shortcut. Their conversation is no longer “should we use Marketplace?” – it’s “what does the next level of Marketplace adoption look like?”

2️⃣ Early-stage Marketplace adoption: don’t oversell it internally

For companies earlier on the curve, one theme kept coming up:

the goal isn’t to win a big internal debate about Marketplace – it’s to land a first set of deals through Marketplace.

Keep the story simple:

Lead with customer benefits and deal velocity, get a few wins via Marketplace. Let those deals prove the case to sales, finance, and ops.

Once there’s real revenue in the reports, adoption conversations become much easier.

3️⃣ Channel and Marketplace are getting tightly linked

For more mature ISVs, we heard strong agreement that channel partners are now key to Marketplace scale.

Partners in the room were very enthusiastic: Marketplace is becoming a way to

• strengthen their AWS alignment

• simplify procurement for joint customers

• participate directly in cloud-commit–driven deals.

4️⃣ PLG is getting a bigger role on Marketplace

Importance of PLG elements is growing – especially free trials, but also self-serve flows on Marketplace listings.

For many buyers, this is now the expected way to start: try the product, then scale via private offers and co-sell.

5️⃣ New AWS capabilities that will shape 2026 GTM

A few product moves that people in the room were paying attention to:

• Agent Mode – buyers will be discovering products via conversational agents.

  Makes keywords, messaging and SEO (& AI optimization) on Marketplace listings more important.

• Multi-Product Offers – the ability to bundle multiple vendors into a single offer and transact as one. Big enabler for alliance plays that feel seamless for customers.

• Express Private Offers – for deals that are too big for pure self-serve but not big enough for a heavy sales cycle you can train AI to negotiate

6️⃣ Integrators as critical infrastructure

Marketplace enablers like Spektra SaaSify are becoming essential infrastructure for Marketplace scale – to automate co-sell, private offers, PLG and now funding requests so GTM teams don’t get stuck in operations.

Huge thank you to everyone who joined, and to Spektra SaaSify for helping us close the year with such a high-signal session.

Also, thanks to Deel for supporting us. Deel is the all-in-one payroll and HR platform for global teams. You can get a 10% off all Deel products here.

Riot Games targets 90% of software procurement via Marketplace — here’s why

Riot Games is aiming for 90% of software procurement via Marketplace. After 935% growth in year one and their buying cycles shrinking from 100+ days to under 30, it tracks.

What’s remarkable isn’t just the speed—it’s how they engineered internal adoption without mandates.

“We didn’t mandate that you had to purchase through AWS Marketplace,” explained Mozammil Aslam, Director of Strategic Sourcing at Riot Games during the last AWS re:Invent. “We made AWS Marketplace the least path of resistance for new software requests.”

This isn’t a small buyer testing a new channel. Riot has 4,500 employees across 20+ offices, their EMEA entity alone reportedly had €1.85B in 2024 revenue.

When their Strategic Sourcing leader shares procurement strategy, alliance leaders should pay attention.

From Detective Work → Strategic Power

Their Marketplace transformation started with a painful realization: Riot’s procurement team was drowning in tactical vendor verification while engineers waited months for tools. InfoSec reviews alone consumed 4-6 weeks just validating basic certifications.

“We didn’t want to play detective to see if this SaaS vendor was legitimate or not,” explained Mozammil Aslam.

By leveraging marketplace’s pre-vetted suppliers with SOC 2 certifications readily available, procurement stopped hunting vendors and started doing what creates value: verifying whether tools solve real business problems and negotiating better terms.

The speed advantage compounds

Engineers launch trials immediately, validate requirements, and have tools ready before the old process would’ve completed InfoSec review. This prevents a costlier problem: shadow IT from engineers finding workarounds.

All-In on Marketplace

Most enterprises test marketplace cautiously. Riot went all-in. After their breakthrough in 2022, they saw triple-digit growth in 2023, another 20% in 2024 even as the base expanded massively.

They’re also expanding beyond SaaS into AI.

“We’re looking at machine learning models, purchasing containerized images,” Aslam revealed, signaling marketplace is becoming their default procurement layer for all technical assets.

The impact extends beyond large enterprises

Aslam suggested startups might benefit even more: “The capital that you would normally invest towards TPRM tools, you can leverage AWS Marketplace for these pre-vetted suppliers and reallocate that capital towards chasing the market opportunity.”

3 moves for ISV alliance leaders:

• Optimize listings to compress reviews —highlight certifications, compliance, security architecture, etc.

• Build frictionless trial paths on marketplace, so buyers can validate tools before formal procurement starts

• Enable your sales team to ask and answer questions “Can we buy this on marketplace?” - Riot’s procurement now asks this question for every new request

Where are your top enterprise accounts in their marketplace journey - and are you ready when they set a 90% target?

Source

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Make 2026 Your Marketplace Growth Year: Join Cohort 14 Starting on January 13th

Enterprises have committed $531B to AWS, Microsoft, and Google Cloud — budgets you can tap into via cloud marketplaces. For SaaS and AI companies, Marketplace GTM can make or break scale in 2026.

The most advanced GTM orgs – from scaleups to public companies – are rewriting the rules. They’re using marketplaces and co-sell to scale revenue faster, compress sales cycles by 40-60%, and make buying frictionless.

Real results from real companies

Over the past two years, 270+ alliance leaders have completed Cloud GTM Leader course and built this capability. Examples of what alumni have achieved:

• Launched from zero marketplace motion to $200K revenue + $7M pipeline in 8 weeks

• Closed their first $1M+ marketplace deal and turned it into a repeatable motion

• Scaled marketplace revenue 4X YoY from an already high eight-figure base

These aren’t outliers.

They’re alliance leaders who invested 5 weeks to master the frameworks, tactics and relationships that drive cloud GTM success.

What we master in 5 weeks:

• How to tap into cloud commits + marketplace buying processes

• Co-sell patterns with hyperscaler field teams that actually create pipeline

• How to position on marketplaces so sellers choose you among thousands of vendors

• Frameworks to Align sales, product, finance, and ops around one cloud GTM plan

• How to accelerate deals with smart co-marketing (and more)

What’s included

• 10 expert sessions with VP-level marketplace & alliance leaders from category-leading SaaS companies and hyperscalers

• 5 weekly masterminds to workshop your strategy and challenges with peers

• Slack community with 270+ alliance leaders

• Frameworks, templates, and playbooks companies typically pay consultants to build

Newsletter reader price lock (through Dec 20)

As a thank-you to newsletter readers, I’m holding last year’s price for the January cohort: $599 (instead of $649) — valid through Friday, Dec 20.

Next cohort starts Jan 13. Use code NL599 at checkout.

Save Your Spot

If 2026 is the year you want Marketplace to become a real growth channel — this is the cleanest window to join at the lower rate.

What alumni are saying

“I wish I had this knowledge before I started my role in the GTM department last year.”

“As someone who has built AWS alliances twice, driven marketplace success, and led cross-functional GTM motions, this program elevated my perspective and sharpened my thinking around cloud co-sell programs, marketplace motions, channel strategy, and scalable GTM frameworks. Highly recommend.”

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

Share

This week we’ll break down key AWS re:Invent insights, plus new data on how AI and cloud are reshaping IT budgets:

• 9 re:Invent signals that AWS Marketplace is now the primary GTM engine for ISVs – from up to 4–5x larger deals, and Salesforce scaling from $2B to $3B in six months, to a new $7.13 partner multiplier and agentic AI specializations.

• What we learned from our oversubscribed AWS Marketplace breakfast at re:Invent – PLG 2.0, making Marketplace feel “normal” to the rest of your company, and why automation is now the key scale enabler.

• 7 signals from BCG’s latest IT Spending Pulse – AI and cloud budgets rising in lockstep, AI ROI in the 11–14% range, and why platforms + specialists are quietly winning over do-everything providers (and what that means for your cloud GTM strategy).

Before we dive in:

• Join us this Thursday in London (Dec 11, 6–8pm) for our re:Invent Strategic Debrief with AWS’s Phil Soane – turn key re:Invent insights into your AWS Marketplace growth in 2026

Save Your Spot

9 re:Invent signals that AWS Marketplace should be your primary GTM engine

After last week’s Partner keynote at re:Invent, it’s hard to see AWS Marketplace as anything other than the primary GTM engine for ISVs – and the numbers Ruba Borno shared back it up.

These are the signals that stood out to me last week:

1️⃣ Marketplace as the #1 GTM scaling engine

Amazon Web Services (AWS) called Marketplace “the most powerful Go-to-Market scaling engine” and “the highest performing, fastest growing GTM channel”, driving up to 4–5x larger deal sizes and up to 40% net-new customers.

If Marketplace isn’t at the center of your GTM strategy yet, you’re missing out.

2️⃣ Marketplace billionaires are rapidly growing

A group of partners are now doing $1B+ a year each through AWS Marketplace:

• Datadog has crossed $2B

• Snowflake and Salesforce are both over $3B

Not only is Marketplace supporting multi-billion-dollar motions for ISVs, but numbers are scaling fast too - I reported Salesforce crossing $2B in June, now they’re already at $3B.

3️⃣ Self-serve + AI reshape the sales motion

Over 80% of Marketplace transaction volume is already self-service. Express Private Offers use AI to issue custom pricing in minutes instead of weeks.

The default buyer journey is becoming increasingly product-led and automated.

4️⃣ Multi-product solutions enable more partnerships

AWS launched multi-product solutions that bundle multiple ISVs, professional services and AWS first-party services into a single package with one lead seller and unified procurement.

The real play is now solution orchestration, not just listing your product.

5️⃣ New partner multiplier: $7.13 for every $1 of AWS

For every $1 of AWS services a partner deploys, they see $7.13 in their own revenue.

With AWS talking about growing to a $300–400B business, they are signaling a 3 trillion dollar partner economy on top.

6️⃣ Competencies as real economic levers

Customers working with competency partners are 30% more likely to get AI workloads into production and do it 25% faster.

Competencies are no longer just a badge – it’s a measurable advantage in competitive deals.

7️⃣ Agentic AI becomes a formal specialization

AWS launched three new agentic AI competency categories (applications, tools, consulting services) and will give these partners 50% more MDF plus a specialization badge in Marketplace.

Signal: agents are a core category.

8️⃣ Startups compounding on Marketplace

Startup partners are growing Marketplace sales 130% year over year; companies like Vanta have seen private offers grow 700% YoY. You don’t need to be an enterprise to see Marketplace traction.

9️⃣ True global localization for Marketplace deals

AWS is rolling out “true local invoicing”: local currency, local banks and region-specific tax treatment, not just FX conversion. For partners, that removes a big part of the friction in scaling Marketplace deals globally

What else stood out to you from the keynote? Curious how this lines up with your own AWS GTM and Marketplace motion.

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Insights from our Marketplace Strategic Breakfast @ AWS re:Invent

Last week at re:Invent, 50+ ISV and cloud GTM leaders filled the room at The Venetian to answer one question: what does AWS Marketplace GTM look like at scale?

Huge thank you to everyone who joined us (and to those who tried – we were oversubscribed).

Three themes from the conversation stood out.

1️⃣ PLG 2.0: from clicks to agents

Lewis Howarth highlighted that traditional PLG is no longer enough.

Many ISVs have been building strong PLG strategies leveraging marketplace features. The next wave is what he called “PLG 2.0”:

• Agentic discovery (Agent Mode) that helps customers find the right solutions

• Agentic solution building with Multi-Product Solutions

• Agentic negotiated offers with Express Private Offers

In other words: the “product” is no longer just your SaaS – it’s the full Marketplace + agent experience that guides buyers from discovery to buying with far less human friction.

2️⃣ Make Marketplace feel “normal” to the rest of your company to scale internationally

Phil Soane focused on the internal side of Marketplace scale.

The ISVs that grow fastest on AWS Marketplace globally don’t treat it as a side-channel. They work to normalize Marketplace globally:

• Mirroring business entities and finance structures in their Marketplace setup

• Localizing transactions so finance teams see familiar currencies and flows

• Bringing finance, legal and operations into the journey early so trust builds over time

Marketplace stops being “that special thing the cloud team does” and becomes just how the company sells, across regions.

3️⃣ Scale needs automation, not just people

Reagan Koryozo’s message cut through very clearly.

Plenty of ISVs are now doing hundreds of private offers and tens of millions in GMV on AWS Marketplace. But many of those motions are still held together by people: manual quoting, bespoke approvals, spreadsheets behind the scenes.

To get anywhere near the “billion-dollar club”, the flywheel has to be automated, not just staffed. That’s where the Marketplace enabler ecosystem comes in – platforms like Suger that turn repeatable patterns (listing, co-sell, private offers, billing) into systems instead of heroics.

For me, two things stood out:

• How honest the discussion was – from what’s working to what’s still improving

• How much valuable insight comes from putting “operators” in one room before the main conference day kicks off

Big thank you to:

• Lewis Howarth and AWS team for sharing their perspective

• The ISV and channel leaders who pushed the conversation into real-world detail

• Ingram Micro for hosting us, and Suger for partnering with us on this event

We’ll keep taking these conversations both online and offline – more working sessions coming soon

PS. Special thanks to our partner Suger that helps B2B software companies unlock revenue on cloud marketplaces.

Special re:Invent AWS Marketplace Strategic Debrief in London

After our oversubscribed AWS Marketplace breakfast at re:Invent last week, we’re bringing the most important marketplace insights to London for our final in-person GTM debrief this year.

On Thursday, 11 December (6-8pm, near Liverpool Street) we’re hosting a Re:Invent Strategic Debrief – AWS Marketplace GTM for ISVs & Partners:

It’s a focused, invite-only session for leaders who want to turn this year’s announcements into marketplace growth and co-sell plays for 2026.

Re:Invent is where AWS sets the agenda for the next 12 months. This debrief is about what that actually means for your GTM if you’re building on AWS Marketplace in the UK and Europe:

• Which Marketplace and partner moves matter most for ISVs

• How buyers are changing the way they purchase through AWS

• Where ISVs are already seeing pipeline, co-sell, and revenue from marketplace motions

I’m excited that Phil Soane – Senior Manager, AWS Marketplace International Expansion – will speak at our London event.

Phil has one of the deepest views I’ve seen on how Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace is scaling internationally, and what it takes for ISVs to make Marketplace feel “normal” for the rest of their company rather than a side channel.

With 5+ years helping ISVs scale across EMEA and globally via AWS Marketplace, Phil and the international expansion team help to transform complex international requirements into clear pathways for success.

We’ll keep the format practical:

• Strategic context on key re:Invent Marketplace / partner announcements

• Phil’s insights on growing internationally with AWS Marketplace

• Q&A and discussion on what’s working (and what’s evolving) – and how to accelerate your Marketplace GTM in 2026

• Networking in a curated group of ISV & cloud GTM / alliance leaders

📅 When: Thursday Dec 11, 6–8 PM UK time

Where: London, 77 Leadenhall St (near Liverpool Street) – small group setting over light drinks and nibbles.

Save Your Spot

Join us in London on Thursday evening and leave with:

• A sharper view of AWS Marketplace direction after Re:Invent

• A shortlist of actions for your 2026 GTM plan

• New connections with peers who are also scaling their AWS business

See you this week in London!

PS. Thank you to our partners

• Spektra SaaSify for supporting this event. SaaSify powers cloud marketplace operations of companies like Palo Alto Networks. It transforms traditionally heavy, high-touch processes into fully automated, no-touch marketplace systems.

• Deel (one of the fastest-growing companies in history, surpassing $1B ARR within just 6 years) & WeWork for hosting us in London

AI & Cloud Are Eating IT Budget: 7 Signals From BCG Spending Pulse

Enterprise buyers are pragmatically rewriting IT budgets around AI, cloud, and security. BCG’s latest IT Spending Pulse shows the shift that is actually happening behind the catchy headlines dominating media.

Here are 7 signals that stood out for me:

1️⃣ AI and cloud are growing in lockstep

• AI/ML is the top net expansion area, with 45% of buyers planning to increase AI/ML spend

• Cloud services are number 2 at 27%

Both are up strongly vs the last pulse (+6pp for AI/ML, +5pp for cloud), while devices, servers, and standalone analytics are flat or shrinking.

AI growth is coming with cloud growth, not instead of it.

Security is closely following cloud.

2️⃣ Digital transformation, growth and security are back on top

Cost-cutting is fading. CIOs now name digital transformation, growth, and security as their top three priorities.

As AI begins to prove its value; they modernize the core to grow it.

“Budgets are stabilizing and buyers are returning to strategic initiatives with renewed confidence” (BCG)

3️⃣ Budgets are rising again – with a maturity gap

IT leaders expect to grow spend by 2.9% in 2025 and 3.6% in 2026. This is cautious optimism, not a return to blank-cheque projects

More mature organizations dedicate 4.1% more revenue to IT vs less mature peers and expect 2X the ROI from GenAI and AI agents.

4️⃣ AI is delivering real – and measured – ROI

Current GenAI deployments show ~11% ROI, with expectations to rise to ~14% over the next 3 years (14.7% for AI agents).

Average ROI has moved slightly up from 10.6% at the end of 2024, pointing to a real growth rather than hype.

5️⃣ From “AI everywhere” to 3-5 winning use cases

Leaders are cutting the number of AI initiatives and concentrating on 3-5 use cases that work for them, e.g. analytics, customer service, marketing.

Fewer experiments, more tuning and scaling.

6️⃣ Platforms and specialists beat “do-everything” providers

“Satisfaction with technology providers varies sharply” (BCG).

• 8 out of 10 buyers are satisfied with digital platforms - most satisfied group

• SaaS and specialist services sit around 63%.

• It drops to 48% for MSPs - clearly buyers prefer focused experts.

7️⃣ Supplier consolidation is accelerating

“Supplier consolidation reflects a pragmatic push to simplify portfolios, fund innovation, and reduce risk.”(BCG).

Even in security, where spending remains robust, “buyers are consolidating vendors as they seek fewer but stronger tools to ensure resilience and manage complexity.”

Why this matters for alliance & marketplace leaders

• Treat AI, cloud, and security as one conversation, find a way to join it

• Align your product in marketplaces as the easiest path to (enable) scale pragmatic AI programs on top of trusted clouds

• Lean into consolidation: be the focused, high-ROI specialist on your hyperscaler’s platform, and surround yourself with a curated list of high-caliber partners (not a long tail of noise)

Source: BCG

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P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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This week we’ll break down key Microsoft Ignite insights and how marketplaces are becoming the default route to enterprise buyers:

• Largest buyers go Marketplace-first – why marketplaces are growing 4X faster than cloud computing (84% vs 21% CAGR) and how enterprises like Mars cut contract cycles by 90% by making Marketplace their procurement policy.

• Microsoft’s $6.26 partner multiplier – new data shows ISV + channel motions on Microsoft Marketplace are growing 3.5X, producing deals 75% larger than average, and why channel partners capture $6.26 in extra value for every $1 transacted.

• Inside our Ignite breakfast in SF – what Microsoft leaders and ISVs shared on growing via marketplaces, accelerating co-sell and channel, and the operations you need once Marketplace becomes your primary revenue engine.

Before we dive in:

If you’ll be at re:Invent next week, I’m hosting an invite-only, early-morning marketplace leaders breakfast in Vegas on Thursday, Dec 4 to digest the week’s biggest marketplace + partner announcements and turn them into concrete GTM moves for ISV alliance leaders (limited spots).

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Largest buyers go Marketplace-first: Closing contracts in 6 days, not 60

Microsoft Ignite made one thing brutally clear for alliance leaders: if you’re not treating Marketplace as a key GTM motion, you’re leaving MACC dollars and deal velocity on the table.

Here are some of the insights I’m taking away from sessions with Will Kearl, Elizabeth Beals and Rajesh Ramankutty:

1. Marketplaces are outgrowing cloud and becoming the default route to buyers

Cloud is growing 21%, but cloud marketplaces are growing about 4x faster at 84%.

The message was simple: Average enterprise runs ~600 apps and the only realistic way to bring that ecosystem with you to the cloud is through marketplaces.

Over the last year, Marketplace sales grew 2X (doubled), and customers who use Marketplace increased their average spend by 75%.

2. Being MACC-eligible and discoverable is now table stakes

If the customer has a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), you’re selling against pre-committed budget, not net-new spend – and Marketplace becomes the easiest way to use it.

Microsoft already has >3,800 MACC-eligible solutions, and 85% of MACC customers are transacting through Marketplace.

3. Use 100% MACC drawdown as your strategic lever

100% MACC drawdown on eligible Marketplace deals isn’t new, but today Microsoft is the only hyperscaler still doing 1:1 (no cap), while others cap marketplace usage at ~25%

This was called “one of the most generous benefits” for customers

4. Marketplace is becoming a procurement engine – and in some enterprises, a policy

Mars’ procurement lead explained that Marketplace cut contracting time from 60 days to 6 days (90% faster).

If an offer is in Marketplace, they know controls are in place via standard contracts and security, so procurement now operates as Marketplace first – even for low spend.

They also use large SaaS renewals (Databricks, Citrix) through Marketplace to balance against MACC consumption and adjust renewal strategy to optimize MACC drawdown.

5. Marketplace is an extension of Azure security – and a new observability layer for spend

Marketplace is an extension of your Azure environment: the same security model and policies apply.

On the finance side, buyers are using Marketplace as an observability layer for software: one place to see vendors, overlap, and MACC impact.

6. Discovery now happens inside Teams, Copilot and Azure – your listing is your new SEO

Marketplace offers now surface directly in Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Foundry and Azure Portal. You can ask Copilot in Azure what you need and get Marketplace recommendations with links straight to listings.

So your listing metadata, categories and value prop serve as your in-product SEO across the Microsoft estate.

If you lead alliances, takeaways are simple:

• Treat Marketplace as the front door for AI and cloud deals

• Build your commercial story around Marketplace, commits and procurement value

• Align with how buyers are already standardizing their AI, cloud and apps spend

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Microsoft partners earn $6.26 per $1: Capturing the Marketplace multiplier

Channel partners have been asking hyperscalers for a seat at the Marketplace table. Microsoft Ignite’s message last week: channel is not just at the table — you are the growth driver.

Here’s what I took away from sessions focusing on Marketplace + Channel + AI opportunities.

1) Marketplace is driving impressive growth

Nicole Dezen framed Marketplace as “our scale growth engine for the ecosystem”, backing it with recent Omdia data:

• 75% ISVs say deals close faster

• 69% land larger deals

• 88% see recognizable revenue growth tied to Marketplace

This makes the Marketplace a natural place for ISVs and channel partners to drive GTM, co-sell and invest in growth.

2) ISV + channel on Marketplace is where the biggest deals live

When an ISV and a channel partner come together on Marketplace:

• That slice of the business is growing 3.5X, and

• Producing deals that are 75% larger than the average Marketplace deal.

Jason Rook highlighted that not only is the marketplace overall doubling, but the ISV + channel subset is compounding on top.

Translation: any Marketplace strategy that doesn’t include ISV + channel is leaving serious growth on the table.

3) The Marketplace multiplier heavily favors partners

New Marketplace study by Omdia quantified the upside of using Microsoft Marketplace:

• ISVs see $1.75 of additional value for every $1 transacted via Marketplace

• Channel partners see $6.26 of extra value for every $1

That extra value comes from service attach, renewals, bundling, etc. – where channel partners are strongest.

4) Deal economics are shifting toward partner-funded, AI-heavy motions

Jay McBain forecasts that 59% of Marketplace deals by 2030 will include partners. That aligns with Microsoft’s broader pattern: ~95% of their deals are partner-assisted already.

Jay also highlighted that the majority of customers already use partners for agentic AI - 47% rely on partners (+24% adopt hybrid approach).

Result? Marketplace is the place where AI, partners and commercial flows are wired together.

5) Resell Enabled Offers (not so) quietly put channel back in control

This was the most “channel-changing” piece for me. Darren Sharpe explained that with Resell Enabled Offers (now GA worldwide):

• ISVs keep one public transactable listing

• they authorize specific partners to run a reseller version

• the partner controls price, terms and lifecycle, sends the offer directly to the customer, and owns the relationship

• Microsoft bills the customer and pays the partner, who then pays the ISV

This is Microsoft re-creating traditional channel power structures inside Marketplace:

partners keep contracting primacy and can add other services & products – but now on Marketplace rails.

What this means for Alliance leaders:

Marketplace is the platform for how Microsoft, ISVs and channel do business together.

The next wave of growth with Microsoft will be captured by partners who are both AI and Marketplace-fluent.

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Insights from our Marketplace Strategic Breakfast at Microsoft Ignite San Francisco

Marketplace is now at the center of Microsoft’s GTM – and in the early morning last week in rainy SF, 40+ ISV and Cloud GTM leaders joined us to compare notes on what actually drives revenue. Here’s what we learned.

From Microsoft, we had an incredible lineup of marketplace leaders:

• Will Kearl – Senior Director, Microsoft Marketplace

• Darren Sharpe – Microsoft Marketplace Channel Lead

• Joined by a panel of leaders from Datadog, NetApp, Contentsquare and Suger.

The conversation was honest: what’s working, what’s improving, and where the biggest upside is.

Marketplace is at the center of Microsoft strategy

Marketplace is now the “platform for partnering” – embedded into co-sell, channel, and increasingly distributors.

Major updates: global rollout of resale-enabled offers + marketplace integrations with Arrow, Ingram Micro, Pax8, TD SYNNEX and Crayon.

ISVs can now:

• Authorize partners to resell via PO, while controlling geos, pricing, and partner selection

• Plug marketplace even deeper into how the channel already sells

ISVs with marketplace muscle are pulling ahead

ISVs were clear: when you build marketplace muscle and lean into Microsoft, growth looks different.

Laura Ripans from Datadog described this velocity shift. Microsoft’s strength in the enterprise turns into much larger deals and better access to strategic accounts.

Manik Rane from NetApp shared how they went from minimal marketplace presence to making it their primary revenue engine.

The customer pull to transact on marketplace is now absolutely real.

But growth isn’t automatic.

You have to keep educating your sales teams, learn how to co-sell, and integrate marketplace into your org:

• Make marketplace and co-sell easy for sellers with clear plays.

• Lean on customer value in cloud conversations. Even when your product looks “competitive,” show cloud sellers how it drives consumption of native services – it changes the conversation.

Channel is the next frontier & ops are key

As marketplace becomes distributed across channel, for ISVs, working with partners who already have marketplace practices is one of the fastest ways to grow.

Mike Marzano from Contentsquare underscored that strong operations are essential. The more you sell via marketplace, the more you need automation across listing, co-sell, private offers & billing – this is where platforms like Suger come in, and why having them host us mattered.

What impressed me most

• How open Microsoft marketplace leaders were with the ISV community to share what’s working and what’s evolving

• How strong the marketplace momentum feels at Ignite – number of ISVs, scale of the ecosystem, and the energy in the room this morning

• How much value comes from putting operators in one room before the main conference starts

My view: we’re still early in marketplace growth, with huge growth potential ahead.

Big thanks to our incredible speakers, to Suger for hosting, and to everyone who joined us that morning.

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AWS Marketplace Strategic breakfast @ re:Invent

If you’ll be in Las Vegas for re:Invent, I’m hosting a curated AWS Marketplace breakfast on Thursday, Dec 4 at The Venetian.

We’ll meet early to digest the key AWS Marketplace + partner announcements from the week and translate them into concrete GTM moves for ISVs.

The session is aimed at ISV alliance / marketplace leaders who are scaling their AWS business. Spaces are limited and attendance is by approval only.

Request to Join

P.S. If you found these insights valuable, please forward it to your alliance lead or cloud/GTM counterpart - it’s how this community shares what works.

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