Retail giant Walmart, Inc. has entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft Corp. for the wider use of cloud and artificial-intelligence technology, in a sign of major rivals of Amazon.com, Inc. coming together.
The five-year agreement will leverage the full range of Microsoft's cloud solutions, including Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365, to make shopping faster and easier for customers, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said.
As part of the partnership, Walmart and Microsoft engineers will collaborate to migrate a significant portion of Walmart.com and SamsClub.com to Azure, Walmart added.
Increased Convenience
"Walmart’s commitment to technology is centred around creating incredibly convenient ways for customers to shop and empowering associates to do their best work," commented Doug McMillon, Walmart's 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," added McMillon.
Doubling Down
While Walmart is doubling down on its e-commerce presence to better compete with Amazon, Microsoft has been working on a technology to eliminate cashiers and checkout lines from stores, Reuters reported last month.
Microsoft's technology aims to help retailers keep pace with Amazon Go, the e-commerce giant's highly automated store format.
The Windows software-maker has shown the sample technology to retailers from around the world and had talks with Walmart about a potential collaboration, Reuters reported.
Through the partnership, Walmart plans to defend itself from Amazon's retail ambitions and expertise in data, boosting its online presence.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
