Ingram Micro has launched its new Australian cloud marketplace, revealing as it did so that the New Zealand version is due to launch ‘in the coming weeks'.

The Australian cloud marketplace enables resellers to directly purchase, provision, price and invoice unique Microsoft Office 365 bundles from a single dashboard.

Through the cloud marketplace, Ingram Micro says it is the first Microsoft master cloud service provider to offer Office 365 on an automated platform.

In New Zealand, Ingram Micro, Dicker Data and Exeed have all been appointed as 2-tier Microsoft cloud solution providers.

The Ingram Micro Australian offering is backed by an integrated suite of migration tools from SkyKick, and also offers consolidated billing.

Richard Duggan, Ingram Micro Cloud APAC executive director, says the new marketplace enables resellers to lift their customers' businesses to the cloud with confidence and ease, while elevating their own profitability and footprint in the cloud.

The Australian offering includes a suite of cloud services, including Cloud Ignite to assist channel partners with data migration and on-boarding of customers and provide free customer service for all cloud services purchased on the marketplace.

An Ingram Micro Service Desk will provide a fee-based customer service which partners can resell and bundle with other offerings, providing 24/7 multilingual Level 1 support for front office, desktop and other IT-related issues via phone, chat and email.

The launch of the cloud marketplace comes as the battle between distributors for the cloud space heats up.

Dicker Data is also expected to launch its cloud offering in the coming months. Synnex is also looking at launching a cloud offering for resellers ‘quite soon', according to Kee Ong, Synnex New Zealand  chief executive.

All three will be trailing other distributors, including Westcon, who lead the charge locally, and Exeed.

Ingram Micro says the Cloud Marketplace is scheduled to launch in New Zealand in the third quarter of 2015.