[ghaff]

It can be both. AWS and Google in particular (Microsoft was obviously always an enterprise company) started out the individual credit card route and I'd argue a major reason they've been able to grow--AWS better than Google modulo GSuite--is that they recognized they actually needed an enterprise sales force and the things that are associated with it.

[SteveNuts]

Google has been exceedingly difficult to work with from an Enterprise standpoint. We spend millions with them for Google Workspace and I don't even know our account executive's name, nor have we ever talked with them if we even have one. Everything is done through our VAR.

In the meantime I'm well aware of and speak to our Microsoft rep regularly, they know our business and what we need, and have been helping round up resources for upcoming projects and initiatives. It's night and day between MS and Google.

It seems like Google thinks their products are so perfect and infallible that they can cut out the human element entirely. That may work for personal Gmail accounts and such but not so great when you spend millions with them.

[closeparen]

Isn’t it the point of a VAR that the VAR, not the vendor, owns the client relationship?

[SteveNuts]

Yes but we still have relationships directly with our other vendors (Microsoft, AWS, Oracle, Red Hat, Cisco, VMware, the list goes on).

Despite buying all those through a VAR we still have account managers/executives, dedicated systems engineers that we work with directly at the vendor, except Google.