AWS co-branding guide forbids mentioning multi-cloud

> AWS won’t even let partners use the word “partner” in some cases. When it comes to joint engineering or co-development, AWS won’t let partners use the words “partner,” “partnership,” “partnering” or “alliance,” opting for terms like “agreement,” “teamed,” or “in cooperation” instead.

The not very cynical take is, the person(s) responsible for this had too wide a mandate to dictate language and went overboard.

The cynical take is that this puts partners into a position where they almost certainly will violate the guidelines. This is like making jaywalking a crime. If you make something everyone does a crime, you can selectively prosecute the people you don't like, so language like this makes it easy to tell any partner offering services AWS doesn't like they're violating the rules.

The conversation will go something like this:

(Satire follows.)

Partner: How can we get right with AWS?

Amazon: Well, easy, you just need to stop advertising that you're partners.

Partner: So after we went to the effort of forming an agreement with Amazon and becoming partners, we can't advertise it? Advertising our services as partners helps drive new customers our way!

Amazon: Well, that seems like a you problem. It's plain as day, the rules say you can't advertise yourselves as partners in the AWS Partner Network brand guidelines.

Partner: What about $other_partners?

Amazon: We can't comment on our relationship with other individuals or businesses, have a great day!

I'm not an expert on this topic, and have no familiarity with the co-branding guide beyond having just read it, but it appears to describe the conditions for AWS and other companies to work together on a co-branded marketing campaign. From the guide:

> Co-branding occurs when AWS and an APN Partner ... agree to work together to achieve a shared marketing goal.

I see no restrictions on partners having or advertising multi-cloud solutions on their own. The guide just says that AWS isn't willing to participate in marketing campaigns that mention them. Here is the entire relevant section:

> APN Partners should not promote the use of their solutions on other cloud platforms in joint marketing activities or in high-visibility assets used at our events ... The focus of these assets and campaigns should be on customer success with AWS Cloud. If you prefer not to reference AWS specifically, you may reference "the cloud" or "your cloud". Booth collateral, such as data sheets, flyers, and whitepapers may reference all the specific cloud platforms that the APN Partner's solution runs on. [emphasis mine]

Thus the article seems to misconstrue the issue, and the truth seems to be merely that AWS isn't willing to participate in marketing campaigns that promote competitors.

With the consolidation to the big cloud vendors, the pain the cloud giants put on their minnow partners are only going to get worse. And I am not sure what can be done about it.

Good luck making smart friends Amazon.

I suppose the #1 player wants customers not to be told that other players even exist, and the other players want to talk about the advantages of using the #1 player and ALSO them.

The problem I would see is the fact that the service needs to be built as a whole.

In the past when I used multiple cloud services it was very easy to build a single cloud solution and the cost of each version would increase.

In the past I used a single cloud provider to build and deploy the entire AWS ec2-core infrastructure.

It is not too bad for the AWS-core business but I would much rather have a single cloud service built in than rely on one provider.

Not sure what this article is referring to but it did not seem to be restricting that particular relationship.

edit: removed non-citable claims