CRN December 2023 - Issue 1424

CRN Dec 2023 Issue #1424 - Google Cloud CEO: All MSPs Are The Future: Thomas Kurian is leading the charge to build an ecosystem of AI life-cycle partners - Products Of The Year - Stellar Startups - Women On The Rise

ISSUE 1424 • DECEMBER 2023 crn.com

PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR Technology standouts PAGE 14 STELLAR STARTUPS Innovation drivers PAGE 26 WOMEN ON THE RISE New times, new heights PAGE 38

Google Cloud CEO: AI MSPs Are The Future Thomas Kurian is leading the charge to build an ecosystem of AI life-cycle partners, providing them with financial incentives, lead generation and training and ensuring Google Cloud’s products have AI built in. PAGE 8 NEWS, ANALYSIS AND PERSPECTIVE FOR VARs AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATORS

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Computer Reseller News December 2023 Columns 5 The Final Cut By Steven Burke 50 The Channel Factor By Jennifer Follett Features 6 Interview with Kyndryl’s CEO 38 Women On The Rise Thomas Kurian is leading the charge to build an Google Cloud CEO: AI MSPs Are The Future

ecosystem of AI life-cycle partners, providing them with financial incentives, lead generation and training.

Garnering kudos from their colleagues across the channel, these are

the women who are reaching new heights by being fierce advo- cates for partners. 46 Next-Gen Solution Provider Leaders When a challenge arises, these solution

Products Of The Year With categories ranging from mainstay channel offerings to newer areas such as enterprise AI, here are this year’s winning partner-friendly products as voted on by solution providers.

provider executives are stepping up and driving real change.

Innovation is what drives the technology industry, and it’s startups that are behind the wheel. For solution providers looking for that competitive edge, the offerings from these 100-plus vendors can make a world of difference. Here are 2023’s Stellar Startup winners. Stellar Startups 14

In the 100 People You Don’t Know But Should list in the October issue, the correct spellings for two of our honorees are Kipp Stumpf of ConnectWise and Shashi Nair of Cyware Labs.

For reprints and plaque requests, please contact The YGS Group at 800.290.5460 or http://crnlicensing.com

CRN (ISSN 1539-7343), also known as Computer Reseller News, is pub- lished 8 times a year (February, April, June, August, October, December and 2 Special Issues) by The Channel Company, One Research Drive, Suite 410A, Westborough, MA 01581, and is free to qualified manage- ment personnel at companies involved in the reselling/distribution of computers/networking systems, software and services. One-year subscription rates for all others in the United States are $209.00; Canada $234.00. Overseas air mail rates are: Europe $380.00; Mexico/South America $380.00; Africa $380.00; Asia/Australia $480.00. Please mail all subscription inquiries along with checks or money orders to The Channel Company, Dept: CRN Subscriptions, One Research Drive, Suite 410A,Westborough, MA 01581. For renewals or change of address, please include the mailing address label appearing on the front cover of the publication. Periodicals postage paid at Worcester, MA, (and additional offices, if applicable). POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Chan- nel Company, One Research Drive, Suite 410A,Westborough, MA 01581v. FOR SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES go to crn.com/subscribe Copyright ©2023 by The Channel Company. All Rights Reserved. Registered for GST as The Channel Company, GST No. R13288078, Customer No. 2116057, Agree- ment No. 40011901. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: APC Postal Logistics, LLC PO Box 503 RPO W Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill ON L4B 4R6

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DECEMBER

THE FINAL CUT A Solution Provider CEO For The Ages

By Steven Burke

GIVEN THE SPEED-OF-LIGHT CHANGES in tech- nology, ever-shifting business models and the need to constantly evolve to survive, there is little doubt that being the CEO of a CRN Solution Provider 500 company is simply one of the toughest jobs in the world. Think of the job as the equivalent of racing an Indy 500 car and trying to change out parts and tires while driving at 200 miles per hour all on a race track with

new twists and turns on each and every lap. Given Ron Dupler’s success navigating those twists and turns as a solution pro- vider CEO for over 25 years, it would be hard to come up with anyone else who could match his accomplishments as what surely has to be called the archetype of the modern solution provider CEO: a technologist with 20/20 vision, a thoughtful servant leader with unmatched integrity, and someone who always—always—puts customers and employees first. Dupler has been a CEO in the technology solutions business since 1998, the last nearly 20 years as CEO of GreenPages, which this year was renamed Blue Mantis. Effective Jan. 1, Dupler will move into a chairman role, remaining on the board of directors, while handing the CEO reins to Blue Mantis President Josh Dinneen. Dupler has taken the Portsmouth, N.H., company from a product reseller competing on price to an advanced technology integrator with robust profes- sional services capabilities, and then finally into a full-fledged next-generation strategic service provider, bringing customers high-level cloud computing and cybersecurity services. Dupler is every bit a technology visionary in his own right, anticipating the major shifts in the business and successfully crossing one chasm after another. He made those big shifts by building a culture focused on always going above and beyond for customers, no matter how small or big the project, and by building deep and long-lasting relationships with customers, vendors, employees and colleagues. “We transitioned the company a number of times and built a company that people were proud to work at—and we took great care of customers,” he said. “The thing I am most proud of is the company we built, what the company is today, the team we have in place and the environment we created. We took great care of our clients. We are known as a thought leader and a high-quality organization that always acted with integrity. We have built a great team and culture that will continue long beyond me.” Dupler, who turns 64 in March, said he is looking forward to spending more time with his family. He just celebrated his 40th anniversary with his wife, Gail, with a trip to Italy and is looking forward to spending time with his three grandkids and his sons—Ronnie, 38, who works in the technology business as a recruiting director and Nate, 35, and Eric, 32, who together run a home remodeling business. “When you are the CEO of a dynamic technology company, it is a huge com- mitment,” Dupler said. “It’s time to kick back a little and enjoy life.” Here’s to you, Ron Dupler. Thanks for all you have done for Blue Mantis, all the customers you have served, and all the deep long-lasting relationships you have built. Wishing you all the happiness in the world as you begin the next chapter of your life. 

Elevate your people, organization, and solutions through high-visibility recognition across the entire channel.

BACKTALK: Which solution provider CEOs do you admire? Let me know at sburke@ thechannelcompany.com.

DECEMBER 2023

NEWS STORY

Kyndryl CEO Martin Schroeter On Getting Rid Of Low-Margin Business

Check Point is a place where women thrive in the Channel! We are thrilled to be recognized as a finalist in the Women of the Year CRN awards , with over 30 years driving success with our partner community.

By Joseph F. Kovar Martin Schroeter, Kyndryl’s CEO, spoke with CRN after the company’s second fiscal quarter earnings report about how it is moving on from ‘basically resell- ing other people’s equipment’ to position itself for long-term growth. Here is an excerpt of that conversation. Looking at Kyndryl’s results, we see revenue down but the company’s loss is down even further. It appears Kyndryl is attributing that to getting rid of some lower-margin business. So what exactly did Kyndryl do? What we’ve been talking about, particularly this year, is engineering a decline in revenue to get rid of either low-[margin] or no-margin businesses that we inherited in the [spin-off from IBM]. And that’s particularly evident this year, offset partially by the growth that we’re driving into capabilities that we’re bringing to market. We inherited a business [from IBM] that was basically reselling other people’s equip- ment. And we’re taking that down dramatically this year because there’s nothing in it for us. It’s all empty calorie revenue. We also inherited a lot of contracts that basically had other companies’ IP, primarily IBM: IBM mainframes, IBM software stack. And so we’re trying to get that out of our contract because there’s no margin, there’s no benefit to buying that through us now that we’re independent. And we’re encouraging our customers to buy that directly through IBM. But don’t some of the product sales that you’re moving away from also include services that you would then lose as well? No. See, that’s the thing about the nature of what we do and how vital we are to our customers. We’re able to engineer getting out of the resale without losing the labor. In fact, we’re growing our labor content on a like-for-like basis. The labor piece of our business is actually growing because we’re so vital to how our customers operate. We are able to navigate this. I don’t know that anybody else could. But we’re able to navigate this. We’re able to get rid of and push back the content that we don’t want and give it to the owner of the IP. And we’re able actually to grow the labor piece, which is what is important to us because we’re a labor business. Again, I don’t think anybody else could do it. But we’re able to do that in a way to position ourselves for long-term growth. And quite frankly, we’re able to do it not only because of who we are and the skills we bring, but all of our customers are still in an industrywide skill shortage. So we continue to play a critical role in how our customers see themselves, building up and getting access to the skills they need, whether it’s mainframe, security, cloud, etc. So we fit that really, really important part of their secular challenge around skills, and we can get out of the stuff that we don’t want. It’s a very unique spot. It’s interesting to hear a solution provider trying to push customers to purchase directly from the vendor rather than wringing their hands over direct sales to the end-user customers. We identified these ‘empty calories’ already two years ago before we were spun out as something we needed to figure out. The commercial terms that IBM pro- vided in the spin were just not going to suit us over the long term. And so two years in, we’ve made a lot of progress. And ultimately we have more to do, but ultimately this will work out fine for us. 

DECEMBER

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COVER STORY

GOOGLE CLOUD CEO: AI MSPs Are The Future Thomas Kurian is leading the charge to build an ecosystem of AI life-cycle partners, providing them with financial incentives, lead generation and training and ensuring Google Cloud’s products have AI built in.

By Mark Haranas

T homas Kurian sees the need for a next-generation solution provider that is the tip of the spear for Google Cloud’s aggressive generative AI charge, where partners will becomeAI life-cycle MSPs tasked with transforming the business of every customer. “Our vision forAI is very simple,” Google Cloud’s CEO told CRN . “Our view of what AI models do is take every role in a company— marketers, customer services, salespeople, etc.—they now have a digital expert that can collaborate with them. …A partner can build an entire business, a brand-new business, usingAI models to do that.” Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Cloud is “meeting the AI moment,” with partners being the critical ingredient to the $33.6 billion company’s success in the GenAI era, Kurian said. “Every role will transform over the coming years in every organization. It’s an opportunity for partners to think about, ‘How can I use this technology to reimagine that role? And what are the software packages and services I create for it?’” said Kurian. “As AI model capabilities evolve, customers constantly want to iterate what are the new things that the model can help them do, either in the existing department and solution they have, or elsewhere in the company. Leading partners are saying, ‘We’re going to build you a structure where we can just engage with you as a client. We can stay with you for multiple months or longer, delivering more and more capability. And we’ll take care of all the pieces that may be complicated for your company.’ … That’s what we mean by a full AI life-cycle partner. Many of them are now starting to say to clients, ‘You can give us a problem and we’ll solve it.’ We call that a new type of managed services partner.”

GoogleAI partners said they are no longer talking to customers about cloud spending commitments and consumption. Instead, they are explaining how AI can potentially solve business chal- lenges—changing their relationships and total addressable market. “The conversation is going beyond the Google technology and has moved from, ‘How much do you want to consume?’ to ‘Forget about consumption. Let’s look at the problem you’re going to get solved. Consumption will happen automatically,’” said Ifan Khan, president and CEO of Google Premier partner Cloudsufi, which specializes in AI and data analytics. “That is a very powerful change of dialogue that is happening right now,” Khan said. “[Kurian’s] vision wants to move away from that [consumption] discussion, and he wants to say, ‘Look, how much value do you want?’ It’s a very big transition to create [Google Cloud’s] partner model on.” San Jose, Calif.-based Cloudsufi’s revenue is up 50 percent in 2023, while its AI customer pipeline has jumped 1,200 percent. “Out of our massive pipeline growth, I would say at least 6X has come from areas which we never thought customers would explore,” he said. “AI is the new electricity. If we think about when electricity was formulated, it’s a general-purpose technol- ogy, which means it can be used for not one thing but a lot of different applications. That’s exactly what GenAI is.” Kurian: GenAI Is ‘All About Changing The Customer Experience’ Partners cite a wide variety of successful customer GenAI use cases in production today, including helping pharmaceutical com-

DECEMBER

panies redo the way they conduct drug discovery, implementing net-new code generation and code refactoring, helping banks become closer to millennial customers by leveragingAI for digital transactions and creating AI models to do image detection on factory assembly lines. Other key use cases include improving patient care for hospitals by making a person’s entire medical history easily available for doctors and cleaning up companies’ data lakes and databases to automate new areas of business. Kurian said one of the largest sales-driving opportunities for the partner ecosystem is not only selling to the IT department, but to the back offices of customers as well, opening up brand-new line-of-business dollars to chase after, thanks to GenAI. “Some CEOs say, ‘Hey, I’m using AI to improve efficiency. Efficiency means my finance and back-office function, my human resources, my help desk, my call center and customer service sys-

“We’re helping customers with business transformation across the value chain, creating nonlinear growth models for custom- ers,” said Sanjay Singh, CEO of New York-based Onix. “We’re enabling new product introductions, new solutions, new manu- facturing capabilities as well as breaking the linearity between cost and revenue.” Because “every company who needs customer services” is seeking Onix to transform their business via AI, the company’s sales are up 500 percent in 2023 compared with last year, includ- ing several recent big wins from Fortune 100 companies, Singh said. “Google is innovating at a very rapid pace. Let’s suppose there are multiple models deployed within the customer environment in which that model also undergoes refresh all the time from Google. That is where a partner like us comes in, and we make

tem.’ Others say, ‘Hey, I want to change the way I engage customers, change the way that people book travel with me, change the experience they have when they visit my hotel, change how they order food.’ These are all about changing the customer

sure that the model is giving the right results, you’re fine-tuning it, you’re making sure that the model is trained on the right data—that is where the MSP MLOps, DataOps and the AIOps come into the picture,” Singh said. “That is super

‘e deployment of this AI tech is giving dramatic outcomes. Not small results, but dramatic improvements across cost, innovation and customer experience.’ — Sanjay Singh, CEO, Onix

experience,” said Kurian. “We provide amazing technology throughVertex AI [MLOps tools] and [AI-powered collaborator] DuetAI, but somebody needs to sit down with the customer and redesign that business process.” In Kurian’s mind, that somebody is a partner withAI expertise. Kurian is puttingAI specialist partners front and center to drive this services-led customer redesign, armed with some of the most innovative GenAI solutions. Google Cloud’sAI innovation engine has been revving in 2023, with nearly every new product launch this year revolving around AI.This includes the launch ofVertex AI, Duet AI, as well as new GenAI features injected into BigQuery,Workspace and the Google Cloud Platform. ‘Every Company Who Needs Customer Services’ Is Seeking AI Building and managing a customer’s AI life cycle is the biggest money-making services opportunity partners have ever witnessed, Google Cloud executives told CRN , as solution providers are poised to discover new use cases outside IT departments, build and maintain a customer’s AI models and constantly fine-tune and upgrade customer data. Onix is a 13-time Google Cloud Partner of the Year winner that has been focused on data andAI for years.The company has 75AI customer projects in production—from transforming patient care to deploying AI in call centers to boost agent productivity, as well as AI customers in retail, telecom and financial services industries.

critical, and it’s a very high-growth area for us. … The deploy- ment of this AI tech is giving dramatic outcomes. Not small results, but dramatic improvements across cost, innovation and customer experience.” Transforming a customer’s data into usable AI solutions is key for partners and leads to rich services opportunities, he said. Because customer demand for GenAI is far outweighing supply, Onix acquired business intelligence data analytics andAI company Datametica in October. “Data exists in multiple systems, but customers need to form a 360-degree view of everything. That’s what this platform does from a contextual perspective—managing the models to make sure it is giving the right output and inputs, and managing that for the customer life cycle,” said Singh. “All my new hires are in the data and AI [areas]. My demand is outstripping supply in terms of data and AI capabilities.” Google Cloud Faces AWS, Microsoft Competition This year, the three largest cloud computing companies placed their investment dollars in GenAI. Like Google Cloud, Microsoft andAmazonWeb Services are pouring billions into launching new GenAI products, services, tools and partnerships withAI startups like OpenAI andAnthropic, respectively, as the cloud giants want to inject AI into everything—from collaboration tools to new AI foundation models. Kurian said Google Cloud will win this AI arms race by pro- viding the best AI infrastructure for training and serving models

DECEMBER

COVER STORY

in terms of cost, performance, scale and throughput. He cited as proof that 70 percent of AI unicorn companies and 50 percent of all AI startups are using Google Cloud Platform. “We have a long history of integrating AI models into our products. Just saying, ‘I’ve got a model’ is not as capable as say- ing, ‘It’s integrated inside the product.’ Because the experience people have inside the product—How good are your prompts? How many times do I have to ask a question in the prompt to get an answer back?—that’s expertise we [have] built for a very long time,” said Kurian. Google, for example, integrated AI inside its Gmail platform 10 years ago, he said. “So [we brought] that expertise in terms of how we make models work efficiently inside products to

that’s happening with our customers and given the new incentives and tools that we’re delivering for the ecosystem.” Ichhpurani said Google Cloud is also “doubling” its investment in partner programs next year for GenAI customer adoption, including funding around sourcing of new logos, assessments and proofs of concept as part of the company’s Rapid Migration Program (RAMP). “I’ve never seen an opportunity so large in my life for the ecosystem” said Ichhpurani, adding that he sees a 10X greater services opportunity for partners that provide high-value AI services. “Companies are trying to rethink their entire business using generative AI.” Google Cloud is also investing heavily in training with Google

Google Workspace and to Google Cloud Platform using Duet AI,” Kurian said. “And that enables partners to build solu- tions much more quickly around it because we’ve done it.” This speed and estab- lished expertise are critical, partners said, as

partners already complet- ing a total of over 100,000 AI courses. In addition, Kurian said Google is investing in demand generation and lead gen- eration for partners by running events to teach customers and potential customers about AI. “People come to ourAI

‘I’ve never seen an opportunity so large in my life for the ecosystem. Companies are trying to rethink their entire business using generative AI.’ — Kevin Ichhpurani, Corporate VP, Head of Global Ecosystem, Business Development, Google Cloud

GenAI solutions have the ability to quickly create ROI for cus- tomers on a major scale. Historically, solution providers said, it was difficult for them to show value to customers in a matter of months when implementing a solution, typically taking several quarters or longer for them to realize ROI. “In 10 weeks or 12 weeks, a customer was not able to visualize that something as drastic can happen where the entire piece of a problem can be fully, not just predicted, but become cognitive,” said Cloudsufi’s Khan. “With GenAI being added to the training engine, it’s possible. So what it does is customers’ commitment confidence goes up, and they are ready to commit.” Khan said with GenAI, “It’s easy for customers to write the check because they can visually see an ROI, which is incredible. So with that, partners like us right are now going in saying, ‘In 12 weeks, here’s what could be done.’” New 10X GenAI Incentives For Partners In 2024 Google Cloud is putting its money where its mouth is in terms of enabling partners with financial incentives to become next-level AI MSPs. The company plans to double its incentive investments next year for partners driving GenAI deployments and life-cycle management. “For partners who are deploying GenAI to customers, we plan to increase our investments by 10X,” said Google Cloud’s Kevin Ichhpurani, corporate vice president and head of global ecosystem and business development. “We’re really getting behind this. I’m super excited because 2024 is probably going to be one of the biggest opportunities for partners ever given the transformation

events, then we give the leads to the partners. So it’s not just that they got trained and they have access to the latest models and have access to the solutions people are demanding but now, they are being given a customer lead,” said Kurian. The Google Cloud AI MSP There are various opportunities for Google Cloud partners in the AI arena to make some serious money, from working with small businesses looking to begin their services-led AI transformation journey to enterprises already spending millions on AI to change their business model. Google Cloud executives said customers are yearning for part- ners to help them identify AI use cases, the potential risks, and then prioritize use cases with the highest impact and lowest risk. Then, customers are seeking partners to help them do proofs of concept and set up the correct data foundation needed to drive AI-fueled efficiency and ROI.This is then followed by customers’ need for data governance, data privacy and data refreshes as well as change management in areas like marketing departments and employee resources. With GenAI impacting businesses’ top-line revenue while also bringing massive improvements to the bottom line, Ichhpurani said customers are begging for deeper expertise in AI, cyberse- curity and data analytics. “Customers are saying, ‘Hey, I don’t have the expertise in- house to build these AI use cases. But I want you to not only build it, I want you to maintain it for me,’” said Ichhpurani. “They’re looking for this next-generation MSP, which is less about

DECEMBER

operating the infrastructure because the infrastructure is already highly automated in the cloud. They want somebody who is not just going to train an AI model, but they’re going to continue to refresh that model and update that model. So this next genera- tion of MSPs that our customers are asking for is like an AI MSP that maintains that model, trains the model, refreshes the model and makes sure there’s not bias in the model. It’s not a one-time thing. It’s an ongoing thing.” Kurian’s Leadership Key To Partner Ecosystem Growth Before Kurian joined Google Cloud in late 2018, the company was generating annual revenue of $5.8 billion. This year, Google Cloud’s annual revenue stands at $33.6 billion, representing a 479 percent revenue increase in just five years. “Thomas Kurian taking on the role at Google Cloud as CEO was

Cloud for their AI journey, Kurian said one “simple” strategy made it possible. “We started with a very simple premise: Our success has to drive our partner success, and our partner success has to drive our success. So we didn’t look at the business as a fixed pie where we give business to our own consultants versus the partners. We said, ‘This is going to be the bigger the pie, the better for everybody,’” he said. Compared with some of its AI and cloud competitors, Google Cloud does not have a large internal services organization. Instead, it relies on systems integrators, consultants, ISVs and MSPs to drive services sales, Kurian said. “Unlike the competitors who have large services organiza- tions, we’re not going to customers saying, ‘You have to use our services.’ In fact, we’re telling customers, ‘Start with your systems

a pivotal moment, not just for Google Cloud but for the entire partner eco- system,” said Asif Hasan, CEO of Quantiphi, an AI and data science soft- ware and services Google Cloud Premier Partner based in Marlborough, Mass. “Google Cloud’s

integrator, the consultant, the technology partner, the AI MSP that you’re comfortable with.’ What we’re going to do is make our services people assist them on the project. That’s a very different approach than saying, ‘Well, I’m not sure if my partner has the

‘e degree of investment that we have seen in Google positioning its generative AI solutions in front of customers this year has been unprecedented.’ — Asif Hasan, CEO, Quantiphi

trajectory has been completely transformed, and the numbers are there to prove it. It’s not just revenue, but it’s also the profit- ability—which is a much harder problem to solve.” For the first time in its history, Google Cloud reported profit- ability during the first quarter of 2023 of $191 million, up from an operating loss of $706 million the year prior. In the second quarter of 2023, Google Cloud generated a profit of $395 million compared with a loss of $590 million year over year, representing a nearly $1 billion operations improvement. During the third quarter of 2023, Google Cloud maintained profitability for the third straight time by reporting an operating profit of $266 million compared with a loss of $440 million year over year. Quantiphi’s CEO said that thanks to Google Cloud’s partner- first mindset, his company’s head count exploded from 500 people in 2018 to now 3,200 employees.Although Quantiphi also part- ners with AWS and Microsoft, Google Cloud is the company’s foundation in the new AI era. “In all of 2022, we did 20 to 25 [GenAI] projects. In 2023 as of October, we’ve already surpassed 300 opportunities,” said Hasan. “The degree of investment that we have seen in Google positioning its generative AI solutions in front of customers this year has been unprecedented.” Kurian On The ‘Heart’ Of Google Cloud’s Success And ‘New Frontier’ Of AI When questioned about how he was able to drive such high revenue growth, profitability and have customers pick Google

expertise so I’m taking the business direct,’” said Kurian. From dozens of Google Cloud partners in 2018 prior to Kurian joining, the company now has over 100,000 partners. Kurian said the company’s success has come by building the best technology, helping partners create solutions with it, then building a field and go-to-market organization based on bringing partners into customers. “Everyone across my entire go-to-market organization under- stands the value of that. So [recognizing that] has been the heart of our success,” he said. Overall, Google Cloud is in prime position to become the worldwide leader in GenAI and artificial intelligence broadly, Kurian said. “AI is the new frontier, and we want partners to get value from this next technology revolution. Because we think the platforms that win in the end are the ones that are most open and the most partner-friendly. Because if partners can bring solutions to our customers, that in the end is what makes everybody successful,” he said. “From small to large companies, we see tons of interest [in GenAI], and it’s the one time where we’ve seen the demand emerging globally,” said Kurian. “We want every partner to know we welcome them, and we’re investing heavily in these programs. We’re giving them the ability to build a business with us in an area that we are seeing extraordinary customer interest, not just from the IT departments, but also from the lines of business who want to use AI to change themselves.”

DECEMBER

COVER STORY

Thomas Kurian On Google Cloud’s AI Dierentiators Vs. Rivals AWS, Microsoft The CEO discusses what he says are the advantages Google Cloud has over its two main rivals, the big money-making opportunities for AI MSPs, and how Google is investing heavily to enable GenAI sales opportunities for partners.

What is Google Cloud’s market dierentiation in AI versus AWS and Microsoft? We look at it as five important things. The first one, we built the world’s best AI infrastructure for training and serving models. When I say that: cost, performance, scale, throughput—all metrics. If you’re building an application, you’re going to have half the cost, which is critical for people when they adopt it.To show proof of that, 70 percent of the AI unicorns and 50 percent of all AI startups use our GCP [Google Cloud Platform]. So these are the people who are knowledgeable, and they’re voting with their feet. Secondly, when you look at companies and you look at solution partners like systems integrators, etc., they want a platform. AI is not about just the model, it’s about all the tools you need around the model. What do you mean by that? Imagine you’re building a customer service example and you’re building with a model. How do you make sure the model doesn’t start abusing the customer? How do you make sure when you ask a question about ‘What’s my bill?’ you get an answer [that is] 100 percent accurate 100 percent of the time. You can’t have, ‘Oh, well, sorry.We made a mistake 20 per- cent of the time because our model hallucinates.’ So there’s a collection of services that go around the model. And we give people a platform, based on all the experience we have at Google, that enables them to have all the services around the model. That’s why they’re able to go faster.

third parties. It allows them to choose the model that they want. You know that garbage in is garbage out. So if your data is not clean, no matter what—your model may be an elegant model—but it won’t work. So we’ve got all that as a technology foundation. Four, we have a long history of integrating AI models into our products. Just saying, ‘I’ve got a model’ is not as capable as saying, ‘It’s integrated inside the product.’ Because the experience people have inside the product—How good are your prompts? How many times do I have to ask a question in the prompt to get an answer back?—that’s expertise we’ve built for a very long time. Gmail, just as an example, our productivity tools, we inte- grated AI inside of them 10 years ago. So [we brought] that expertise in terms of how we make models work efficiently inside products to Google Workspace and to Google Cloud Platform using Duet AI. And that enables partners to build solutions much more quickly around it because we’ve done it. Then lastly, unlike the competitors who have large services organizations, we’re not going to customers saying, ‘You have to use our services.’ In fact, we’re telling customers, ‘Start with your systems integrator, the consultant, the technology partner, the AI MSP that you’re comfortable with.’ What we’re going to do is make our services people assist them on the project. That’s a very different approach than saying, ‘Well, I’m not sure if my partner has the expertise so I’m taking the business direct.’ As you see the need for a next-generation AI MSP, what are the money-making opportunities for them? There are three big things that we see. First of all, a lot of his- torical cloud computing technology, infrastructure and analytics were primarily sold in the IT department.With generativeAI, a

What are Google Cloud’s other market dierentiators?

Third, we give them a choice of a variety of different types of models: from Google, from open source and even from

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partner can sell into the IT department a high-value solution— for example, a high-value solution like restructuring the way that software engineers work or improving the way that IT help desks work. Because today, we have companies deploying our solution to automate things like password resets, etc. So one [opportunity is that] you can sell more in the IT department. Secondly, you can sell in every customer-facing department. Marketing, sales and services is a big area of innovation us- ing generative AI. Every bank is rethinking how they serve customers. Telecommunications companies are rethinking their call centers. Hospitals are thinking about how they redo scheduling. All of that is using generative AI. So it’s an opportunity for partners to sell outside IT to those functions. Third, many CEOs see this as a way to make their compa- nies more streamlined. Take as an example the work we’ve done at Vodafone. Using our AI, they’re able to find all the contracts that they have with thousands and thousands of suppliers with the terms, conditions, etc. so they can be much more efficient in their supply chain. These are back- office opportunities. So we’re creating opportunity in every function in the back office: ‘How do you buy things? How do you work with suppliers? What’s your contract exposure? What’s your accounts payable?’ So it’s a brand new part of the company where systems integrators, solution partners and independent software vendors can sell. How large are the opportunities for AI MSPs in terms of scale? These are not projects where you get in and get out. Because as the models evolve and get more capable, and the customer succeeds in one domain, they’re likely to say, ‘Wow, you automated my IT help desk.Why don’t you come and help me look at my HR help desk?’ HR help desk is the place that people go to ask for benefits, information, medical insurance, all of these things. So there is a lot of potential business opportunity.And it’s the one time where we have seen that technology decisions are being done in the IT department, but also outside the IT department in every business line in these companies. It’s happening at small businesses because small businesses also want to get the benefit. They don’t have the IT exper- tise. That’s where they need somebody who can just do it as a managed service. Larger businesses see the potential to change the business model in a real way. So across from small to large, we see tons of interest. It’s the one time where we’ve seen the demand emerging globally.

It’s not just happening in the United States, it’s happening virtually in every country around the world.

How are you enabling partners to become AI MSPs? We’re enabling partners in a number of different ways. The first is training them. For example, we’re training them not just on the products, but what are all the customer use cases that are coming in? So [then] they can start thinking of solution packages that they can put together. Second, we’re investing in demand generation and lead generation for them. We have so much interest in our AI products that we are running events to teach people about AI. People come to our AI events, then we give the leads to the partners. So it’s not just [that] they got trained and they have access to the latest models and have access to the solutions people are demanding but now they are being given a customer lead. Third, we’re enabling them with specialized support from our technical experts. So they need support when they’re engaged on a project and they’re like, ‘Hey, I’m seeing this. Am I doing it right?’ We have technical experts who can engage with them on that. We’re doing this not just with consultancies, but with independent software vendors.You’ve seen our announcements with Workday, Salesforce, UKG, DocuSign—there’s a long list of ISVs. So why are we doing it with the independent software vendors? So when people work with their products, the models work naturally as part of the product. You don’t have to leave it to use a model. It’s integrated into your experience. For example, people want to use our Google Workspace productivity tool with Salesforce. We showed them how they can do it.As an example, I’m in Workspace and I write a sales proposal. I’m using AI to write that sales proposal. If it’s an early stage opportunity, you want to write with one set of information. If you’re writing a closing letter because you’re almost done with closing the deal, you would write differently. Now the information about that opportunity sits in Salesforce. So we’ve integrated our AI tools with Salesforce, so that when you’re writing in Workspace you can literally just access information from Salesforce. And the model can use that information to write intelligently. Enabling system integrators, ISVs and making substantial investments to drive the ecosystem and investing in them so they can help build the business with us helps our customers and users have access to these types of great resources. 

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of the Products 2023 Year Powered-Up And Partner-Friendly

By Rick Whiting

Our 2023 Products of the Year awards honor the leading partner-friendly products that launched over the last year as selected by the solution providers that bring these products to their customers. CRN editors selected finalists in 33 technology categories from among products that were newly launched or updated from September 2022 to September 2023. The categories ranged from mainstay channel products like laptops, servers and storage systems to products in newer technology areas such as enterprise AI, application performance/observability, and converged/hyperconverged infrastructure and hybrid cloud infrastructure. We then asked solution providers to rate the products based on three subcategories: technology, revenue and profit, and customer need. The survey received more than 5,000 product ratings from solution providers, and the product with the highest overall score (the average of the three subcategory scores) in each product category was named the winner. What follows are the winners, subcategory winners and finalists for 2023.

APPLICATION PERFORMANCE/ OBSERVABILITY IBM INSTANA WINNER: OVERALL

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INFRASTRUCTURE LENOVO THINKSYSTEM SR675 V3 WINNER: OVERALL

IBM Instana is a fully automated ap- plication performance management system designed for the challenges of managing microservice and cloud- native applications. Instana monitors

AI applications, especially machine learning and deep learning, require a lot of compute horsepower. The Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3 is

a versatile GPU-rich 3U rack server that delivers optimal perfor- mance for AI, high-performance computing and graphical work- loads. The system runs on one or two AMD EPYC 9004 Series processors, supports up to eight double-wide Nvidia PCIe GPUs, and utilizes the Lenovo Neptune hybrid liquid-to-air cooling technology. Lenovo’s ThinkSystem scored highest overall in this category and in both revenue and profit and customer need.

and analyzes data for applications, services, infrastructure, web browsers, mobile applications and more for over 200 domain- specific technologies. The system alerts managers when users are impacted by application performance or stability issues. IBM Instana scored highest overall in this category and in revenue and profi t. Subcategory Winner–Technology: New Relic Platform Subcategory Winner–Customer Need: Dynatrace Platform Finalist: Cisco Full-Stack Observability Finalist: Datadog Platform

Subcategory Winner-Technology: SuperMicro Nvidia HGX H100 8 GPU Server Finalist: Dell PowerEdge XE9680 Finalist: HPE ProLiant DL380a

Finalist: SolarWinds Observability Finalist: Splunk Observability Cloud

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ENTERPRISE GOOGLE VERTEX AI WINNER: OVERALL

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND DATA ANALYTICS MICROSTRATEGY ONE WINNER: OVERALL

The Google Vertex AI platform provides all of Google’s purpose- built MLOps capabilities for data scientists and machine learning engineers to automate, standard- ize and manage machine learning

MicroStrategy touts its flagship MicroStrategy One as the con- vergence of AI and BI, offering comprehensive analytics (reports, dashboards, applications and a data

catalog) and AI (generative AI, machine learning and deep learn- ing) capabilities.The system makes it possible to integrate AI into all data workflows including self-service analytics, business report- ing, embedded analytics and advanced applications. MicroStrategy One scored highest overall in this category and in customer need. Subcategory Winner–Technology: Domo Data Experience Platform Subcategory Winner–Revenue and Profit: Amazon RedShift

projects. The platform assists with training and deploying ML models andAI applications and customizing large language models for use in AI-powered applications. It combines data engineering, data science and ML engineering workflows, enabling teams to collaborate using a common toolset and scale applications using Google Cloud. Google Vertex AI scored highest overall in this category and in technology, revenue and profit, and customer need. Finalist: Amazon Bedrock/Sagemaker Finalist: HPE GreenLake for Large Language Models Finalist: IBM Watsonx Finalist: Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service Finalist: MongoDB Atlas Finalist: Nvidia AI Enterprise

Finalist: Google BigQuery Finalist: Microsoft Power BI Finalist: Qlik Sense Finalist: Tableau Finalist: ThoughtSpot Analytics

BIG DATA HPE EZMERAL DATA FABRIC WINNER: OVERALL

CONVERGED/HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE SCALE COMPUTING SC//PLATFORM WINNER: OVERALL

HPE’s Ezmeral Data Fabric soft- ware, which debuted in 2020, provides a SaaS-based founda- tion for analytics and AI across hybrid cloud environments to

The SC//Platform hyperconverged infrastructure offering combines ser- vers, storage, virtualization and backup/ disaster recovery into a single system. It provides a scalable system for the data

access, analyze and govern data globally. Significantly enhanced in May 2023, the software provides a global data plane that federates different data types in databases, files and data lakes, across on- premises, hybrid, multi-cloud and edge deployments, into a single logical data store. HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric scored highest overall in this category and in revenue and profit, and customer need.

center, branch office and distributed edge locations that simplifies IT infrastructure implementation and management and reduces total cost of ownership.The SC//Platform uses Scale Computing’s Hyper- core operating system and KVM-based hypervisor. MicroStrategy One scored highest overall in this category and in technology.

Subcategory Winner–Revenue and Profit, Customer Need: Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series Finalist: Dell Technologies VxRail VD-4000 Finalist: HPE GreenLake for HCI Finalist: NetApp FlexPod Finalist: Nutanix HCI Finalist: Pure Storage AIRI//S

Subcategory Winner–Technology:Cloudera Data Platform Finalist: Databricks Lakehouse Platform Finalist: Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform

Finalist: Oracle Big Data Services Finalist: Snowflake Data Cloud

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PRODUCTS OF THE YEAR

CRM/ERP SAGE INTACCT/X3 WINNER: OVERALL

EDGE COMPUTING/IoT HPE ARUBA CENTRAL NETCONDUCTOR WINNER: OVERALL

Sage Intacct is cloud-based ac- counting and financial manage- ment software for managing business finances and accounts including financial transactions, sales transactions, sales invoicing, inventory management, cash flow

Network complexity can hinder key business initia- tives. HPE Aruba Network- ing Central NetConductor provides the ability to auto-

mate enterprise network deployment, ongoing network configura- tion and security operations.The product makes it possible to au- tomatically configure LAN,WLAN andWAN infrastructure across data centers and campuses for optimal network performance while enforcing the granular security policies needed for zero trust and SASE architectures. HPE Aruba Central NetConductor scored highest overall in this category and in technology and tied in revenue and profit. Subcategory Winner–Revenue and Profit: HPE Edgeline (tie) Subcategory Winner–Customer Need: Scale Computing Fleet Manager Finalist: Eaton 5PX Gen2 Finalist: Nvidia Fleet Command Finalist: Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Micro Data Center

management, accounting compliance and more. Sage X/3 is the company’s integrated cloud ERP software for managing finances, operations, production and supply chains. Sage scored highest overall in this category and made a clean sweep with the highest scores in technology, revenue and profit, and customer need.

Finalist: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finalist: Oracle NetSuite Finalist: Salesforce Customer 365 Finalist: SAP S/4HANA Cloud

HYBRID CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE

DATA PROTECTION, MANAGEMENT AND RESILIENCY HPE GREENLAKE FOR BACKUP AND RECOVERY WINNER: OVERALL

HPE GREENLAKE WINNER: OVERALL

GreenLake is HPE’s edge-to-cloud platform and portfolio of as-a- service solutions, delivering a cloud experience no matter whether an organization’s applications and data reside in the data center, in pub-

HPE GreenLake for Backup and Recov- ery simplifies data backup and recovery and hybrid cloud protection tasks, se- cures data wherever it resides, and auto- mates the protection of on-premises and cloud-native workloads. More recently HPE expanded its capabilities with tech-

lic clouds, at the edge or in colocation sites. HPE has steadily expanded the GreenLake lineup since its November 2017 launch, this year entering the AI cloud market with HPE GreenLake for Large Language Models. HPE GreenLake scored highest overall in this category and had the highest scores in technology, revenue and profit, and customer need.

nology acquired through the company’s 2021 purchase of Zerto. HPE GreenLake for Backup and Recovery scored highest overall in this category and in technology. Subcategory Winner–Revenue and Profit: Cohesity Data Cloud Subcategory Winner–Customer Need: Zscaler Data Protection Finalist: Arcserve Unified Data Protection Finalist: Commvault Platform Finalist: Proofpoint Sigma Information Protection

Finalist: AWS Outposts Finalist: Dell Technologies Apex Finalist: Microsoft Azure Stack HCI Finalist: VMware Cloud Foundation

Finalist: Rubrik Security Cloud Finalist: Veeam Data Platform

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