The Six Five On The Road with IBM’s Tom Rosamilia talking about IBM’s deal with AWS for business apps.
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Disclaimer: The Six Five Webcast is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors and we do not ask that you treat us as such.
Transcript:
Patrick Moorhead: Hi, this is Pat Moorhead and we are live at IBM Think 2022 in Boston, Massachusetts. I am here with my co-host, Daniel Newman, and we have Tom Rosamilia from IBM.
Daniel Newman: Man, it is good to be here. It’s great to get into the studio. There’s some big announcements that took place here and one announcement that particularly caught our interest, Pat, that we really wanted to talk about, and that was some news that IBM and AWS announced a first of its kind partnership, putting the bulk of IBM software to run Cloud-Native in AWS. Tom, that’s a big story. What’s going on?
Tom Rosamilia: I think so, and I’m glad to be here with you guys. I’m glad to be anywhere where there’s lots of people. It’s a thrill to be here and hosting lots of clients here in Boston, and you’re right. This was a big announcement for us today that we made with Amazon around AWS and IBM software. AWS and IBM have been partnered for a while around consulting. This is really a first of a kind around the software. Now our software was running on AWS before, but it was bringing your own license. Now, as you said, Cloud-Native running as a service part of the AWS marketplace. So great partnership with AWS. I’m thrilled to announce it today, building on things we already have done on the IBM cloud, but now the first of a kind with a strategic partner.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah, this is great. So Tom, NetNet, what’s in it for IBM clients?
Tom Rosamilia: So I think the world is going to be hybrid multi-cloud and you guys think that as well as we’ve talked, and so the ability to connect what you’re doing OnPrem with what you want to be able to do in AWS and other clouds as well, but the ability to run the same software, OnPrem running on OpenShift, running on ROSA, in this case, on AWS, which is Red Hat OpenShift on AWS, is a great combination for our clients because they can use the same skill set and skills as we’ve discussed is a real premium these days. So the ability to run the same software OnPrem and then run it as a service in the AWS cloud, it’s great. It’s breakthrough.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah. So Tom, for those who might be unfamiliar with some of the software that you have that they can run, can you list a couple of those packages that they can now get on the AWS marketplace?
Tom Rosamilia: Sure. So my software kind of breaks down into a couple different categories around automation, around data and AI, around security and what we just renamed today around sustainability. It used to be called AI apps, now it’s all around sustainability. So those four pillars and there are elements of each of those in now being able to run on AWS Cloud-Native, things like Instana for observability as an example, or API connect are security products available on the AWS cloud, and again, available OnPrem. So that combination is a very powerful combination.
Daniel Newman: It’s early days, and of course, we had the chance to get out and talk to everybody and have a conversation with you pretty much right after the announcement. Came out this morning, woke up, looked at my phone and said, “Wow, this is really exciting,” but you’ve been here now on the floor a few hours. There’ve been a few keynotes. You getting any sort of instantaneous feedback from the market or some of the customers that you’re talking to or some of the people on your team? Are they pretty excited about this?
Tom Rosamilia: I think people are jazzed about this because I think it really validates what my boss, Arvind Krishna, has been talking about, the hybrid multicloud, and when you think about it, before it was OnPrem plus an IBM cloud, which it still is, but now we talk about it as really multi-cloud and hybrid multicloud, meaning the combination of OnPrem plus AWS as a partner. I think customers really understand, we’re serious about partnering that we’re doing that Arvind has declared as a strategic element for us. I think it’s proving that out for our clients.
Patrick Moorhead: So Tom, read in the release that this is not only getting your software up on the AWS cloud in the marketplace, but there’s additional collaboration that’s going on. I think I saw marketing and education and some training. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Tom Rosamilia: We’re actually doing a lot of cross-enablement because for a while, we were thought of as competitors and so we’ve got to change the minds of our sellers and of their sellers, quite frankly, to say, “Hey, this is about collaborating together.” So there’s a lot of mutual enablement that we’re doing. I’ve got a great partner over there at AWS who’s leading that and runs sales and marketing for them, and so it’s great to see us commit together to make sure that our people understand that. I will also tell you they’re helping me. It’s in their best interest to me as an ISV, as an independent software vendor, to have my capabilities available on their Cloud-Native in their marketplace.
Patrick Moorhead: One question I got from my community is, can you use AWS enterprise credits to enable this?
Tom Rosamilia: That’s the great news is you can. So people who have their debit cards, they can use it for IBM software and so they can burn down their commits to AWS using my software, which is great, and their sellers get paid on it too.
Patrick Moorhead: I love it.
Daniel Newman: Yeah, it seems like there’s a lot of upscale opportunity here as I sort of watch the environment, Pat. I know it’s first of its kind, but there’s certainly some indicators here that this could be something that it becomes more expansive in time. Of course, that’s my perspective early on, Tom. Overall though, this is pretty dynamic. Now of course, IBM also though has a number of highly regulated industries and focuses and clouds that you’ve built that are specific and will still live in IBM cloud. I think it’s important that the market understands you’re opening it up. You’re opening up for hybrid, for multi, but you also still have all the services within the IBM platform as well.
Tom Rosamilia: We do, and as I said, our commitments there for OnPrem plus the IBM cloud. The new addition is… Actually, the new addition is as a service because it’s been running with BYLL, bring your own license, for a while. I think the BYLL is a lot of shift that says I have a license for QRadar or Guardian. I want to be able to run it on AWS. This, I hope is a lot more lift that says net new, upsell, upscale, upsell for my client set.
Patrick Moorhead: Tom, any final comments you’d like to share with The Six Five audience?
Tom Rosamilia: I just think this is big news and I think, as I said, the partnership with consulting’s been there for a while. IBM has about 10,000 certified AWS consultants and my partner organization, they’re certified in 13 different specialties now. We’re adding software to that mix and software as a service, which is great.
Patrick Moorhead: That is great. I got to tell you, man, I love the new IBM. It’s open, it’s meeting customers where they want to go, and I think this latest announcement of AWS, the IBM apps on AWS is a great move.
Daniel Newman: From the onset of the recent strategy change, moving to hybrid cloud automation, AI security, really having that dedicated focus, you’re starting to see it in the results. You’re already seeing the growth accelerating, Pat, and as you watch these kinds of partnerships, you’re saying, “Hey, let’s meet the customers where they are.” Some of our customers are really coming in with this big hyperscale public cloud and they want to be able to attach others, our long term IBM clients, and they’re just dealing with this hybrid and multi-cloud migration, and overall though, more flexibility, more options, there’s a lot to like about that.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah. And deep in there, I also like the Red Hat story with ROSA, right? I mean, this is all running on Red Hat, which I think is just, in a way, kind of icing on the cake and I think accentuates and reiterates the value that Red Hat brings to IBM clients.
Daniel Newman: Yeah, and it’s great, and Tom, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you coming in here, giving some clarity to The Six Five audience. We really like breaking stories. Of course, this is only hours from the time the news hit the wire. I had the chance to do this here live. So thank you so much for joining us here, Six Five. To our audience, we always appreciate you tuning in. We’ll have more on this. I’m sure there’s going to be more coverage on this coming from us through IBM, and of course, through the work we do with AWS.
Patrick Moorhead: Yeah, and Tom, thanks for coming on and we’d love to see you again on The Six Five.
Tom Rosamilia: Thanks, guys.
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
