Walmart Microsoft partnership

Walmart, Microsoft Team up to fight Amazon

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The recent collaboration has happened between US retail giant Walmart and Tech Company Microsoft. The five-year agreement is designed to leverage the full range of Microsoft’s cloud solutions to make shopping quicker and easier for customers.

Walmart will use Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing system and Microsoft 365, the Redmond Company’s suit to office software on the cloud to accelerate their digital transformation and boost the sales.

Azure is the second largest cloud computing platform in the world and largest Amazon’s rival.

Microsoft’s cloud service are lag Amazon’s web service. According to CNBC in April, citing synergy research group, AWS had 33% of share of the cloud infrastructure market vs. Azure had 13%.

Through the partnership, Walmart and Microsoft engineers will work together to migrate a significant portion of Walmart.com and samsclub.com to Microsoft’s Azure, Walmart said.

Walmart is already using Microsoft services for critical applications and workload. Now they are also planning to use machine learning, Artificial intelligent and other technologies to enables cost optimization, expand operations and innovations and also provide the solutions to the wide range of external customer facing services and internal business applications. The flexible, secure and rapidly scalable global technology will significantly accelerate Walmart’s ability to execute in three key areas:

Digital Transformation: The investment in Microsoft Azure is a continuation of Walmart’s cloud journey and extends across Walmart’s family of brands and international businesses – allowing them to leverage Microsoft’s public cloud to:

• Capitalize on depth and breadth of Microsoft’s compute capacity

• Ability to seamlessly manage workloads in an elastic environment

• Leverage expanded access to new toolsets to innovate faster

• Drive a more cloud native environment and therefore continue to manage cost.

Innovations: Whether it’s a continued focus on site availability and speed, or the ability to quickly and seamlessly launch new features, customers will continue to see Walmart innovating to save them time and money across the shopping journey. There are also massive benefits to operating at scale as Walmart builds a global IoT platform on Azure – from connected HVAC and refrigeration units to reduce energy usage in thousands of U.S. stores or applying machine learning when routing thousands of trucks in the supply chain.

Changing how we work: Microsoft’s modern workplace platform supports connected teams and breaks down silos – with access to a full range of tools including Microsoft Workplace Analytics, Microsoft Stream, and Microsoft OneDrive, Walmart associates will have access to leading collaboration, productivity and sharing tools so they can save time and work better.

Why is this the smart deal?

Working with Microsoft will allow Walmart to outsource some of its technology development without sacrificing anything .The retailer is a huge customer, so it won't be getting off-the-shelf or already-in-development products from the technology giant. Instead, the two companies will work together to develop technology designed to improve all areas of Walmart's business, from supply chain and delivery to customer satisfaction.

This deal lets it focus on the retail deployment of technology that it can create in collaboration with a real tech company.This helps both companies: Walmart gets access to cutting-edge tech development, while Microsoft gets a guaranteed customer that essentially funds its development of retail solutions.