Snowflake’s vision to be Netflix not YouTube serves up more watchable content for customers

Snowflake’s launch of an external marketplace last year led to much desire from its customer base to work the same magic but for internal consumption by myriad firms.

It took that request and ran with it, resulting in the launch of a private preview of an internal version of the marketplace at the firm’s Snowflake Summit last month.

But it’s not a marketplace for a marketplace's sake. It’s backed by requests from real users and an appetite for investment and not just delivering on but exceeding expectations on the Snowflake side of things.

So says Christian Kleinerman, executive vice president of Snowflake, who made comments about the launch and positioned it in the wider context of what the firm is trying to achieve in a 1:1 interview with ITPro.

When we spoke with him at the firm's Summit last year, he was keen to ensure Snowflake delivered something more akin to Netflix rather than Youtube when it came to an application marketplace.

This year, he was keen to talk about how things have moved on quite quickly.

“A year ago we were in preview and early adoption for application providers for the marketplace. But we already had three years of being in production with lots of data providers [behind the scenes]. So it's very important for me [to ensure the distinction] that the momentum has been there, but it was a different situation,” Kleinerman said.

He added: “Since then, at the beginning of this year, we have gone generally available with native apps on all clouds. One of the data points that I was trying to highlight in my keynote [at Snowflake Summit] is that we have a couple of hundred applications that are live on the marketplace.

“It was very important for me to say - and back to the Netflix analogy - here are things you could watch. [And then ask] 'Are people watching people getting value out of this?'"

During Snowflake Summit, Kleinerman was joined by three customers on stage: AT&T, CN Railway and Pizza Hut who were all able to show how they have taken the app vision and turned it into a successful reality for their businesses.

“[These customers were talking] about how they found an app, deployed it, got value, and then got business impact. So when it's generally available to invest here, a couple of hundred applications are published,” he said.

“I think there's another couple of hundred of partners working on deliverables. And the impact is there. And I love that last time we spoke you highlighted the Netflix/YouTube analogy, because I still very much believe that.”

A quest for simplicity in an ever-complex world

These marketplaces feed into the bigger picture of Snowflake’s ambition to reduce complexity and provide simplicity and choice for its growing ecosystem.

“That is core to who we are,” Kleinerman said. “[It’s about] quality over quantity, for sure. Also, if you think of it from the perspective of the consumer, it is much easier to show up to a marketplace that has fewer high-quality selections than has all of these things. [Because then] you don't know what's real, what's useful, who has a serious organization behind it or not.”

He added: “We say don't focus on the infrastructure, focus on your data and your business. The problem is the same, the focus is on making things easy.”

In addition to customers and partners benefiting from their direct interactions with Snowflake, part of the attraction lies in the ability to collaborate and, at times, work with would-be or historic competitors, on common goals.

“The external [marketplace]  is going extremely well. The main metric that I use to track that success is the concept of stable edges. That is defined as a connection between two companies via the marketplace,” Kleinerman added.

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According to official Snowflake statistics, as of the end of the last financial year (ending January 2024), the number of stable edges has grown by a staggering 93% year-on-year. Almost one quarter (23%) of customers now have at least one stable edge, which is up on the 18% that did so the year before.

When you look at  $1 million consumption customers, the picture is even more positive with 65% of them having, on average, six stable edges, according to Snowflake.

“I am very happy it has been going up as it means a third of our customers are getting value out of this. It is my aspiration to get to 100%.  The marketplace is effectively connecting two unrelated organizations and getting them to do business together. It is quite phenomenal and very powerful.”