As the shockwaves continue to ripple through the tech industry following Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods recently, insiders are beginning to ask the hard questions such as what does this mean for shoppers and how does this affect the companies many competitors?
Another question being raised is what will become of the partnership that Whole Foods and Amazon’s largest rival in cloud computing, Microsoft will be affected by the purchase?
A while back, Whole Foods moved its 91,000 employees over to Microsoft’s Azure cloud services along with its Office 365 subscriptions which provide the company access to OneDrive for Business and Skype for Business to conduct its business across many locations.
Unfortunately, it’s looking increasingly certain that Whole Foods will be doing away with Microsoft’s Azure services in favor of its parent company’s offering in AWS. Logistically speaking the move makes sense as Amazon already provides a formidable cloud offering that can be vertically integrated to give the Whole Foods the best retail experience possible. In regards to the transition, AWS will also offer, perhaps, the most streamlined process possible as Whole Foods will theoretically shift its virtual storage environments.
While the purchase avoids antitrust infringements, the loss of 91,000 seats will still undoubtedly be felt by Microsoft as it cedes another big name client to its biggest rival in cloud computing and raises the question of how Microsoft will combat the move?
