The AWS integration follows up earlier ones with Azure and Google, to expand IndependenceIT's reach and partner network.
Seth Bostock, IndependenceIT’s CEO
Desktop-as-a-service software platform provider IndependenceIT, which has been extending its Cloud Workspace Suite software’s reach through integrations with major cloud platforms, has now announced a new integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“This is another step in the evolution of our software,” said Seth Bostock, IndependenceIT’s CEO. “The first platform we integrated with was Azure, and then we did Google once they released Windows compatibility. AWS was originally too expensive for us to consider, but their pricing has come down.”
The Cloud Workspace Solution is a workspace-as-a-service solution that permits the deployment of complete workspaces in the cloud which go well beyond desktops. This includes Windows desktops, business and productivity applications, and a complete back-office system. Their platform is hypervisor-agnostic, so it runs in OpenStack, in VMware, and HyperV and Azure.
“We can offer more than Amazon Workspaces, which is an island in the cloud not connected to anything, and where the partner has to do everything,” Bostock said. “Our suite, on the other hand, can rapidly build an entire LAN for the partner.” It can rapidly provision all elements necessary for automated solution delivery.
“This highlights the flexibility of Cloud Workspace as an enablement platform,” he said. “It goes back to showing we are truly agnostic at the hypervisor/cloud platform level.”
IndependenceIT’s historical focus has been on IT service providers and SMBs and SMEs, which makes sense given that they emerged to fill a void which Citrix did not serve adequately at that time, since Citrix was focused on the enterprise and was not a strong option for multi-tenant use. The AWS partnership, however, is likely to be of the most interest to IndependenceIT’s larger partners, and to appeal to larger end customers.
“AWS has had several reductions, but even after those, compared to other options, it can still be a little pricey.” Bostock said. “We have some large partners who are already using AWS Compute for some things. AWS interest likely to be driven by larger partners, who have customers looking for a name brand – larger integrators with customers who are hung up on the brand.”
The plus here is that Bostock thinks it is likely the company will get some larger new partners through the AWS partnership.
“Getting new partners out of this is a major goal,” he said. “It will open new opportunities for both partners and us.”
IndependenceIT partners’ flexibility in creating their own partner networks was greatly increase by the new release of the software several weeks ago. It allows partners to have their own sub-partner networks, and their own channel program, and will manage it all for them.
