Cisco Webex On AWS Marketplace Puts More SaaS, Managed Services In Customers’ Hands

“It just makes sense for Cisco to be there … We see this as another way that we could put our managed services wrapper around the Webex suite,” one Cisco partner told CRN on the addition of the Webex suite onto the AWS Marketplace.

Cisco has added another way to buy its globally popular collaboration tool. Webex Suite Named User (NU) is now available on the AWS Marketplace, the tech giant shared at Cisco live EMEA 2023.

The addition of Webex Suite NU on the massive public cloud marketplace is a per-user, subscription-buying model that lets partners provide the Webex suite and managed services to individuals, teams or departments, and lets them easily add named users as adoption grows. The addition proves that Cisco is continuing to open up new routes to market for its products and services, especially as more users are attracted to cloud marketplaces, said Joe Berger, area vice president of digital experiences for Cisco partner World Wide Technology (WWT).

“Cisco is trying to make it easy for customers to buy, more or less, on their terms,” he said. “There’s just a lot of interest for customers to buy that new manner.”

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Webex Suite NU is a flexible, secure, and managed collaboration solution for the hybrid workforce. A “named user” is an employee that’s given access to the Cisco software and cloud services. Webex Suite NU includes calling, messaging, meetings, whiteboarding, webinars -- up to 1,000 participants -- polling and Vidcast.

Cisco Webex Suite NU on AWS Marketplace gives partners more room to provide additional services, said Cisco. At the same time, customers can optimize their existing AWS investments while working with a trusted partner. The company said that currently more than 50 partners worldwide can sell Webex Suite NU on AWS Marketplace through the Consulting Partner Private Offers (CPPO) program.

Solution provider giant WWT, also an AWS CPPO program member, is growing its own business around the AWS Marketplace because customer interest in the buying model has been quickly ticking up, Berger said. Software purchases for solutions such as Webex, AppDynamics, ThousandEyes and other SaaS solutions made on AWS can count towards AWS Enterprise Discount Program (EDP) customers’ committed software spends, he added.

“It’s a great fit for customers that have gone down the EDP model road for procuring traditional IT services and SaaS,” he said. “More and more customers are interested in buying through marketplaces these days anyways, so it just makes sense for Cisco to be there.”

The cloud marketplace offers another path for partners to provide value added services on top of those cloud offers, Berger said. “We see this as another way that we could put our managed services wrapper around the Webex suite,” he said.

Webex Suite NU is available through public and private listings on AWS Marketplace within select geographies, according to San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco.

“The AWS Marketplace value proposition is just too strong to ignore,” said Lars Thorsen, global strategic partner sales leader for Cisco’s Global Partner Organization in a recent blog post on the news. “It makes it easy for customers to buy, provision, and instantly gain value from their purchases.”

The company also took to Cisco Live EMEA to announce that its Carbon Emissions Insights widget, now embedded in Webex Control Hub, will give businesses access to data to help them meet sustainability goals. The tool provides scope 2 emissions reporting and recommendations for optimizing energy consumption and usage of Webex devices, the company said.

This new capability is just part of Cisco’s larger sustainability commitment, which includes its goal of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.