Big Blue's former CIO tried to join AWS, ends up at energy company

IBM seems to have managed to prevent its former CIO from joining Amazon Web Services.

Jeff S Smith left IBM in May 2017 after being offered a senior contract at AWS.

This move really pissed IBM off because Smith knew all about Big Blue's plans to reorganize his cloud and set sail for Amazon. Therefore, IBM threw a throwing ball at Smith and tried to enforce his non-compete agreement.

This effort seems to have worked, as the energy management company of World Fuel Systems last week proclaimed Smith's arrival as chief executive and chief operating officer.

According to World Fuel Systems, "Smith's agility experience for sales teams will help improve operational performance to deliver a great experience to our customers and suppliers."

The record read court documents in the case and suggest that IBM and Smith reached an agreement in September and the Southern District of New York was satisfied with the terms and dismissed the case.

Judicial records do not include the details of the agreement, but reveal the arguments used. Smith's team argues that he was not privy to the secret details of the next IBM cloud, his conversations with the AWS people did not reveal the secret and attempts to use Big Blue their non-competition agreement was punitive and an example for the another 1,700 members bound by those agreements. AWS also made considerable efforts to create a job for Smith that would avoid its non-competition.

IBM stated that Smith knew the company well and, therefore, knew that going to AWS was a no-no.

The fact that the parties have moved, each paying its own costs, suggests that common ground has been found. But it's not central enough to allow Smith to work for AWS before his non-competition expires next year. The World Fuels statement, however, does not suggest that Smith's position is temporary: it seems that Big Blue has brought his man to wherever he wants him to go. ®

AWS Marketplace Now Offers Private Pricing For Partners

Customers are moving applications to the cloud at an unprecedented pace, but many want the help of a trusted advisor when it comes to software procurement and fulfillment.

For partners that could translate to a huge opportunity in providing software solutions, said David McCann, vice president of Amazon Web Services Marketplace and Catalog Services during The Channel Company's Best Of Breed (BoB) conference in Atlanta on Monday.

At the BoB conference, McCann announced private pricing for the AWS Marketplace, a feature that allows partners to quote prices to customers that are only visible to those customers.

"In the past, Marketplace had a single price. Now you can have prices unique to customers," he said.

The channel plays a critical role in software choice. According to AWS, overall software spend will reach $569 billion by 2020. The indirect channel share of that spend will be $292.6 billion, or about 51 percent.

"Everyone is on a different journey and you are an advisor of what is going to move to the cloud, and at what velocity. Software is a major part of that decision and the software portfolio for many companies is in massive flux," McCann said to an audience of solution providers.

The AWS Marketplace, a place for AWS cloud computing customers to find, compare and deploy AWS software and other IT services, is a digital library, or a "toolkit" for channel partners. Two years ago, the Marketplace consisted of 800 vendors. Today, that number is up to 1,250, McCann said.

"We are adding three software vendors a week to the catalog, and those companies are there for your engineers to run on behalf of a customer," McCann told partners. "We want the channel to work with the marketplace as a fulfillment engine."

Private pricing will be generally available to partners in the next few weeks, McCann added.

Network Solutions Provider, a Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based solution provider in the audience, said it has its own cloud practice today, but is not an AWS partner. Private pricing, however, is "the missing piece" that solution providers needed from Amazon, according to Phillip Walker, customer advocate leader for Network Solutions Provider.

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