How software marketplaces are evolving to reduce friction, cost and risk

Following last week’s launch of AWS Marketplace Storefront, we’re excited to share that we’ll soon be bringing these enhancements to our enterprise and public sector marketplace customers. 

Storefront gives us greater flexibility to create totally unique multi-vendor software purchasing experiences, giving customers the highest level of customizability and control over their application estate. 

The arrival of this solution is recognition that the software and cloud ecosystem is more diverse and complex than ever and that no two organisations or functions have the same requirements. Combined with our software and cloud optimisation expertise, the enhanced marketplace experience will further help customers control costs and risks without slowing innovation. 

Why customised marketplaces matter

Not so long ago, selecting, purchasing, configuring, deploying and managing software was huge undertaking. 

Then, AWS Marketplace arrived in 2012 to revolutionise the process, enabling 1-click deployment on cloud servers from a curated catalogue of applications. Time-to-value plummeted. Billing became simpler. Its intuitive UX drove compliance and integrated dashboards made governance easy.

Fast-forward to today and governed, frictionless e-commerce-like experiences via marketplaces have gone mainstream and spending is projected to grow at a rate of approximately 29% YoY between 2026 and 2030. Yet, while access to software is as straightforward as it’s ever been, the evolution of the IT and marketplace ecosystems have made procurement strategy and value optimisation a much greater challenge.

Cloud and SAAS is projected to represent 60% of all software spend in 2026; the average number of critical applications has exploded; multi-cloud environments have become the norm; negotiation is required to get favourable terms with each publisher; hyperscaler incentives have blurred the lines between cloud and software procurement strategy.

This complexity has opened a path to competitive advantage for those that procure strategically and balance user autonomy with central control. Getting exactly the right number of licences, for the right software on the right terms can save millions of dollars at a time when budgets are squeezed and innovation is critical.

Organisations therefore have been turning to partners like SoftwareOne to create unified marketplace hubs that give internal users self-service access to approved software. We help in establishing procurement strategy, curating the right applications, negotiating the best possible terms, and designing a marketplace UX that supports desired user behaviour.

A marketplace tailored to your organisation help achieve strategic procurement goals in the following ways:

• One place to buy in the multi-cloud environment
  A unified experience across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud marketplaces, drives standardisation and compliant behaviour, tackling shadow IT head-on.
• Better visibility and control over cost and risk
  Application and user data in a single place provides transparency, control, and predictability, helping manage costs and audit risks.
• Reduced complexity across sourcing and renewals
  The marketplace is not just a storefront; it helps structure the wider procurement lifecycle with one managed approach across sourcing, contracts, renewals, and compliance.

The launch of AWS Marketplace Storefront will enable deeper customisation of our digital software portals, tailoring everything from fundamental layout choices to pricing visibility, creating user-friendly experiences targeted for different stakeholder groups. The compounding effects of these bespoke environments are profound: they dramatically reduce procurement friction, mitigate audit risks, and control operational costs by centralising multi-cloud spend into a single, highly governed destination.

Clearing a path for public sector innovation

The enterprise case is compelling, but the public sector presents an equally powerful use case for bespoke marketplaces. Education and research is both innovation dependent and highly regulated, making procurement a compliance minefield for institutions with limited IT resources.

Frameworks like OCRE (Open Clouds for Research Environments), a multi-billion pan-European framework serving over 10,000 research and education institutions, are helping tackle this complexity, but on their own can only go so far to reduce the friction.

This marketplace approach provides a branded, curated digital catalogueue of SaaS and partner solutions that can be tailored around education and research needs, from security and analytics to AI, collaboration and research workloads. For institutions using or considering OCRE, this connects compliant cloud procurement with day-to-day software access, reducing friction while giving IT, procurement and research teams stronger visibility, control and confidence.

SoftwareOne plans to use AWS Storefront capabilities to make it easier for public sector customers, and those purchasing via frameworks, to find, evaluate and procure relevant AWS Marketplace solutions through a simpler, governed experience.