Nextgen deepens ties with AWS

Sydney Based distributor Nextgen has signed a first of its kind deal in Australia and New Zealand which will see the company become an AWS distributor and public sector partner.

The public sector partner status means Nextgen is building on its relationship with AWS to support partners focused on government, healthcare, education, and the not-for-profit sectors across Australia and New Zealand.

The deal allows partners to offer AWS services without needing to invest in AWS certifications and training as they will be able to leverage the pre-sales, engineering and marketing capabilities within Nextgen.

The distributor is already an AWS consulting partner and the latest agreement between the two companies is recognition of Nextgen’s enterprise cloud expertise, according to its founder and CEO John Walters.

“We have been heading down the multi-cloud path for quite a while,” he told CRN.

“The reason we've been heading down that path and investigating is that our partners have been asking us to do that."

Walters said that the company’s enterprise focus coupled with the success of its Oracle business left partners wanting more cloud offerings.

Nextgen’s AWS business now covers enterprise and government and is supported by its digital marketing arm Bang and its software and cloud economics advisory business, Optima.

“So therefore, going down a multi cloud path now is really important,” Walters said.

“About 40 percent of our business last year was public sector business. So we're very big in the public sector. We obviously work with our partners in that space because all we are is a conglomeration of what our partner’s business is. So therefore, a large part of our partners are working in the public sector and that's what stood out to AWS.”

While the cloud giant has had a public sector division for some time, Walters said this new partnership demonstrates AWS’ commitment to the channel in supporting distribution going forward.

“They've got some big plans around the public sector. And we've got some big plans and strategies, we are on the DTA panel for a while and we're also doing some major work around the key aggregators. In the public sector, that might be higher education or government agencies or particular bodies like that. So it's not just a one to one go to market that we're working on with AWS.

“We're looking at creating fish ponds of opportunity. it's a more of a one to many approach, as we've done with Optima, our software advisory business where we're doing end user software advisory and migration and cloud consulting. The aim is that every one of those opportunities that can be brought through the channel will be and we've got a long track record of doing that.”

In addition, Nextgen has partnered with Melbourne-based enterprise cloud automation company Stax to provide additional tools to support AWS enterprise and public sector deployments.

From the vendor side, AWS public sector country manager ANZ Iain Rouse said in a statement: “With public sector organisations in Australia and New Zealand accelerating the way they serve citizens, using the cloud to achieve scientific breakthroughs and put more of their time and resources into their core mission, now more than ever, we need partners to support that transformation.”

“Nextgen Group has a history of working closely with AWS and its partners to deliver customer outcomes. Their approach is unique and exciting for both AWS and our channel partners and we are pleased to deepen our collaboration by selecting them as a Public Sector Distribution Partner across Australia and New Zealand. We look forward to working with Nextgen and their partners to create a future where adaptability, scalability, reliability, security, and speed are in the forefront of citizen service delivery.”

The deal follows an announcement earlier in the week from Ingram Micro adding AWS to its distribution roster.