Microsoft and Walmart announce strategic partnership to take on Amazon

Microsoft and Walmart today announced a strategic partnership to further accelerate Walmart’s digital transformation in retail. As part of this partnership, Azure will be the preferred and strategic cloud provider for Walmart. Also, Walmart will deploy Microsoft 365 for its thousands of associates around the world to improve productivity.

Walmart and Microsoft engineers will also collaborate on the assessment, development, and support phase of moving hundreds of existing applications to cloud native architectures. Walmart is also planning to migrate a significant portion of walmart.com and samsclub.com to Azure to meet the rising customer demand and reach more global markets.

“Walmart’s commitment to technology is centered around creating incredibly convenient ways for customers to shop and empowering associates to do their best work,” said Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO. “Walmart is a people led, tech empowered company, and we’re excited about what this technology partnership will bring for our customers and associates. Whether it’s combined with our agile cloud platform or leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to work smarter, we believe Microsoft will be a strong partner in driving our ability to innovate even further and faster.”

“Walmart is a pioneering retailer, committed to empowering its employees and delivering the best experience for its customers wherever they are,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “The world’s leading companies run on our cloud, and I’m thrilled to partner with Walmart to accelerate their digital transformation with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.”

This five-year agreement is a win-win for both the companies. For Microsoft, Walmart will become one of its largest cloud customers. For Walmart, Microsoft can provide all the technology power needed to take on Amazon.

Source: Microsoft