Cloud computing pioneer opens office in Lisbon as it continues to work closely with customers around the world
LISBON – September 25, 2018 – Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) announced it has opened its first office in Lisbon, Portugal to support its expanding customer base in the country. The office supports organisations of all sizes, from startups, to public sector agencies, to some of the country’s oldest and most established enterprises, as they make the transition to the AWS Cloud. The new office brings AWS’s presence across Europe to 19 countries – including four Regions and 12 Availability Zones, with another AWS Region and three more Availability Zones coming online in Sweden in 2018 – as the world’s cloud computing leader expands in order to work closely with more customers around the world. To learn more about AWS in Portugal, please visit https://aws.amazon.com/pt/.
AWS delivers computing, storage, networking, databases, and other advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence and machine learning, as on-demand, pay-as-you-go services for customers. Some of the world’s most successful startups such as Airbnb, Netflix, and Tinder, as well as enterprise companies, like Expedia, Formula 1, and General Electric, as well as government organisations, such as the European Space Agency, the UK Ministry of Justice, and NASA are using AWS to innovate, increase agility, and lower IT costs.
Teams of AWS account managers, partner managers, solutions architects, and many other functions are already supporting Portuguese customers to run everything from development and test environments to Big Data analytics, mobile, web and social, enterprise business applications, Internet of Things (IoT), and mission critical workloads. AWS counts some of Portugal’s fastest-growing and most well-known businesses as customers including, Energias de Portugal, Feedzai, Globalvia, Grupo Impresa, Jumia, Lusiaves, Miniclip, Prodsmart, OutSystems, Unbabel, and Uniplaces, as well as Public Sector organisations such as the City of Porto. AWS also has a vibrant Portuguese user group, with hundreds of members that organize local meetups for developers to share best practices, knowledge, and to network among peers. Those looking to join the AWS Portugal user group can visit: https://aws.amazon.com/developer/community/usergroups/europe/
“We are excited to open our first AWS office in Portugal,” said Miguel Alava, AWS Director for Southern Europe. “The decision to officially open in Lisbon follows many years of supporting customers in the country with their cloud adoption. We have seen there is a real appetite from organisations across Portugal looking to get started with AWS in order to innovate, lower their IT costs, and grow their organisations around the world. We look forward to fostering the country’s pioneering spirit alongside our customers and helping them accelerate their digital transformation and deliver innovative new products and services.”
For many years AWS has been supporting the Portuguese startup and technology community by bringing programs like AWS Activate and AWS Educate to the country. AWS Activate provides startups with the resources they need to get started on AWS – including up to $100,000 (USD) in credits, training, support, as well as contact with incubators, accelerators and venture capital firms, such as Founders Founders Portugal, Porto Design Factory, Startup Portugal, Startup Sintra as well as Indico Capital Partners and Portugal Ventures. One example of a startup in Portugal that leveraged AWS Activate to grow is Unbabel. Unbabel provides translation as a service through its platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and started on the AWS Activate program in 2013. Since then they have gone through rapid growth and now have a network of over 50,000 translators serving customers around the world. AWS has also been active in the Portuguese education sector, training and educating students and the next generation of IT leaders with AWS Educate. AWS Educate helps university students and educators to develop knowledge and skills about AWS cloud computing in order to accelerate cloud-related learning. AWS Educate member institutions in Portugal include Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, and the University of Algarve.
The announcement of the AWS office was welcomed by the Portuguese government with Mr. Manuel Caldeira Cabral, Minister of Economy, saying, “Portugal welcomes Amazon Web Services. I am particularly pleased the company chose to open its latest office in our country. This announcement reaffirms Portugal’s position as a digital frontrunner, as an attractive place to invest, and confirms the importance of cloud computing in the digitalization of Portugal. The Portuguese Government is looking forward to ensuring that all parts of our society and workforce are prepared for the new digital economy, powered by cloud computing. The interest of Amazon Web Services in Portugal, together with cloud-based technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Internet of Things, will bolster Portugal’s position as a European center of innovation.”
Portuguese entrepreneurship organisations, such as Beta-i, also welcomed AWS opening an office in Lisbon. Created in 2010, Beta-i’s mission is to support and foster innovation and entrepreneurship in Portugal. Recognized as a leading startup incubator, Beta-i develops programs helping startups accelerate their growth and success. Ricardo Marvao, Co-founder of Beta-i, said of the news, “We are excited to hear that AWS, a household name in the startup ecosystem, is setting up shop in Lisbon. In today’s new world, getting an idea swiftly to market is crucial, and entrepreneurs realize that the AWS Cloud lets them go from idea to launch in record time. We look forward to working even closer with AWS to further nurture the innovative and entrepreneurial startup community in Lisbon and across Portugal.”
Other customers welcoming the AWS office to Portugal include OutSystems, a Lisbon-based technology company that recently raised $360 million in an investment round from KKR and Goldman Sachs. OutSystems is a leader in low-code, rapid application development that helps enterprise organisations accelerate their digital transformation. OutSystems offers AWS as a hosted environment option for its cloud customers to deploy and manage their applications more quickly. “Using AWS, we doubled the growth of our cloud-based business in six months while serving customers in over 50 countries. AWS has given us greater flexibility, faster time-to-market, and allowed us to scale across the globe,” said José Casinha, Chief Information Security Officer of OutSystems. “We welcome AWS to Portugal.”
Portuguese-based AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners also welcomed the opening of an AWS office in the country. The APN includes tens of thousands of Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Systems Integrators (SIs) around the world. APN Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS and the APN helps by providing those entities with business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market (GTM) support. APN SIs such as Accenture, BI4ALL, Claranet, CGI, Deloitte, DXC, FlipKick, Glint, Link Consulting, Magic Beans, Marionete, Rumos, and Timestamp are working with enterprise and public sector customers in Portugal, helping them to migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. ISVs in Portugal using AWS to deliver their software to customers around the world include Anubis, Celfocus, Insurads, Prologica, Velocidi, and WeDo Consulting. Customers in Portugal can also easily find, trial, deploy, and buy software solutions for AWS on the AWS Marketplace.
Customers looking to learn more about AWS services should visit: https://aws.amazon.com/pt/. Individuals interested in career opportunities with AWS in Portugal can learn more and apply online at aws.amazon.com/careers.
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About Amazon Web Services
For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 125 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 55 Availability Zones (AZs) within 18 geographic regions and one Local Region around the world, spanning the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the UK. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit https://aws.amazon.com.
