OpenAI apes AWS Marketplace while Anthropic remains stubbornly Microsoftian

OpenAI’s DevDay keynote was this week, and it featured a cameo mention of everyone’s favorite underpants merchant who also sells databases, AWS. I saw Simon Willison’s liveblog comment and felt very seen: “My eyes glazed over a bit at the AWS partnership section, but it only lasted a few seconds.” With today's more interesting but also largely unheralded announcement, you can now retire your OpenAI spend commitments via a list of (at launch) 32 partners, just like the AWS Marketplace has done for years. The last cloud war was fought over who got to run the customer’s infrastructure. The next one will be fought over who gets to steer the customer’s next purchase. OpenAI plays chess while Anthropic eats checkers OpenAI is making a fascinating play here. …