Next-gen Cloud-iQ to power Crayon licensing

Crayon is phasing in a new chapter of its licensing and cloud management strategy with the full rollout of Cloud-iQ, now positioned as its next-generation platform for partners and customers worldwide.

Set to become the default experience as of September 30, Cloud-iQ represents a shift away from older tools that failed to fully meet partner expectations. The service allows users to manage and optimize cloud licensing across hyperscalers like Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud, and Adobe. It includes an upgraded billing engine, tighter integration with Microsoft Marketplace, and a redesigned interface aimed at making insights easier to interpret.

The refresh comes on the heels of Crayon’s acquisition by SoftwareOne in July, a move that brought together two distributors with similar ambitions in the multi-cloud space. Larrie Clark, chief technology officer at SoftwareOne, said partner input directly shaped Cloud-iQ’s capabilities. Forecasting, spend prediction, and real-time usage intelligence were prioritized, he explained, because partners needed more reliable cost optimization tools.

That acknowledgement builds on earlier remarks from Crayon APAC executive vice president Rhonda Robati, who admitted at February’s Risk and Resilience conference that Prism, the company’s previous platform, fell short of delivering what partners wanted. She pointed to Cloud-iQ as the product designed to correct those shortcomings, describing it as the outcome of long-term investment and partner feedback.

The platform has already been tested in Southeast Asia before launching more broadly across the Asia Pacific region in June, including Australia and New Zealand. The first deployments have supported the improvement of usability and have also confirmed the system’s capability with various types of workloads and billing complexities for different vendors.

While Crayon positions the new tool as a response to partner frustration, it also plays into a larger go-to-market plan that emphasizes closer alignment with hyperscale providers. By embedding stronger analytics and cost-control features, the company hopes partners can help customers approach digital transformation with greater predictability and transparency.

For the customers, the change will neither lead to an increase in the cost of services nor any kinds of interruptions. Such a change of ownership is the sign of an even bigger operation, which is the collaborative work between Crayon and SoftwareOne to deal with the multi cloud reality and the massive operational workload experienced by resellers and enterprises generally.