Another really big win for Microsoft! The company has won cloud business from Albertsons, amid signs that fear of Amazon continues to grow among retailers and they are migrating to Azure at a faster pace these days.
This development comes a little over a week after Redmond disclosed a 7-year deal with Walgreens.
Albertsons will bolster its usage of Microsoft Azure and cloud software, with the supermarket chain all set to make the platform its preferred public cloud with this 3-year partnership. Worth a mention that this is the parent company of Safeway and Vons.
Anuj Dhanda, chief information officer of Albertsons was not chewing words when he talked about this:
“Albertsons chose Azure to be its primary cloud because of its experience with big companies, history with large retailers and strong technical capabilities, and because it isn’t a competitor.”
Not the wisest strategy for these retail companies to indirectly support their own competition, as Amazon Web Services easily generates the most profit for Amazon.
And while Azure may still be a distant second to AWS in the cloud race, but it has started winning large retail customers lately — companies who see Amazon expanding its dominance in commerce expand by the day.
Not only did the Internet retail giant acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, it has also been opening up Amazon Go convenience stores and has also launched its own brand of over-the-counter health products and groceries.
Albertsons is an American grocery with more than 2,200 stores and over 250,00 employees, making it the second largest supermarket chain in America after Kroger.
Interestingly, Kroger is also a Microsoft retailer partner.
