IBM software is coming to AWS as SaaS. Is Big Blue giving up on its cloud?
Or just a healthy pragmatism?
IBM is set to make its software portfolio available as a service on AWS under a new strategic agreement that suggests IBM's "hybrid cloud" drive may increasingly look like a hybrid of IBM software, someone else's cloud -- as Big Blue appears to recognise that competing head-to-head with the hyperscaler is a losing battle.
A comment from the CTO of Brazilian fintech Banco Inter captured a flavour of the future, with Guilherme Ximenes saying: "The availability of IBM SaaS offerings on AWS will allow businesses like ours to focus on delivering our clients value without worrying about IT infrastructure management, helping us innovate at a faster clip."
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(In recent conversations with The Stack several CIOs have strongly emphasised their preference for fewer, but closer relationships with software and cloud providers as they worked to rationalise their estate.)
IBM already has some 30+ software products on AWS Marketplace that can be deployed in a self-serve manual manner. The deal will make them available as easily deployable SaaS and will include "integrated go-to-market activities across sales and marketing, channel incentives, developer enablement and training, and solution development for key verticals" the two said May 11, naming O&G and transport as two verticals.
IBM on AWS
IBM tools coming to AWS as SaaS include its IBM API Connect, intriguingly, it's Db2 database/data management family, IBM Observability by Instana APM, IBM Maximo Application Suite, IBM Security ReaQta, IBM Security Trusteer, IBM Security Verify, and IBM Watson Orchestrate, "with others to follow later this year."
Earlier this week IBM had revealed that its API management offering IBM API Connect was coming to AWS as a service from June 28, to get "close to [your] applications and data to businesses located on AWS."
"As hybrid cloud continues to become the reality for our clients, IBM is ready and willing to meet them with a flexible and cloud-native software portfolio wherever they are in the cloud or in data centers," said Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President, IBM Software, in a canned statement. "By deepening our collaboration with AWS, we're taking another major step in giving organizations the ability to choose the hybrid cloud model that works best for their own needs and workloads, freeing them up to instead focus on solving their most pressing business challenges."
