3. Amazon Web Services Expands Managed Services Reach

Amazon Web Services has been working hard to beef up its partner ecosystem, growing its ranks of MSPs by more than 130 percent over the past year, channel chief Terry Wise said at the company's recent Re:Invent conference. 

Partner-driven engagements are growing faster than the overall business, and the largest partners are growing the fastest – Premier Tier partners in the past year increased revenue four times faster than Advanced Tier partners, Wise said.

This comes as AWS reported 55 percent sales growth in the most recent quarter to $3.2 billion with operating income doubling year over year to more than $1 billion with margins of more than 31 percent.