AWS kicks off with hard sales pitch at annual summit

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud offering of tech giant Amazon, went with a harder-then-usual sales pitch at their annual AWS Summit in Singapore.

Peter DeSantis, AWS Vice President of Global Infrastructure and Customer Support took the option of presenting the many virtues and upsides if enterprise customers bank on with AWS.

“We’re taking the steps to meet the needs of the developers today,” said DeSantis.

Plenty of AWS’ products and services were explained to the attendees of the opening keynote. From Amazon Aurora to Serverless options were painstakingly explained to ensure that AWS offerings are clearly flagged for the public to either familiarise themselves with, and to also make them understand further.

He also flagged out key Malaysia companies who have also done business with AWS, including their work with Petronas Lubricants International (PLI), meant to be testimony to excellent customer service.

DeSantis spent about an hour explaining the solutions AWS has to offer for enterprise clients to the public.

In efforts to further cement the fact that customers were truly satisfied with AWS, DeSantis shared the stage with Chua Chwee Koh (CK), CERTIS Group Chief Technology & Operations Officer.

Developers would appreciate what CERTIS has done with AWS.

“We are leveraging our resources on AWS’ solutions for all our technology requirements,” said CK.

It is common for clients of tech companies to co-present with the hosts in explaining the solutions for the public. But it wasn’t clear as to why CERTIS’ use case would do to other enterprise clients due to the highly customised nature required out of this industry.

Prior to DeSantis presenting, Nick Walton, the AWS ASEAN Managing Director briefed the public on the history and business direction of AWS in the Southeast Asian region.

“We’ve grown over 45 percent quarter on quarter,” Walton says.

“We have built a business with a revenue run rate of close to $30 billion,” he added.

The fact that AWS is drumming hard on their offering means that competitors like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and more, have to do more in thumping their chests to the market.

Various estimates show that AWS market share has grown tremendously over the past few quarters and are increasingly unabashed at flexing their prowess to the public.

While the enterprise market is very subdued compared to the consumer world, with product switching less frequent and customer fickleness less likely, it does seem like AWS is taking on a more aggressive stance that has not been seen in this sector previously.

With over 10,000 attendees at the Singapore Summit, the AWS event has now grown from a small, relatively niche trade show, to becoming more public-oriented event.

It is unclear however how AWS’ new aggressive marketing approach will resonate with the either the public, or more importantly, whether their clients appreciate the fact that their brand is now being used as a marketing tool for AWS