Shopping carts are seen outside a new Wal-Mart Express store in Chicago July 26, 2011. Wal-Mart Stores reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit May 19, 2016, as sales in the US market rose, sending the retailer's shares up nearly 10 per cent.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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.
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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.
While Walmart is doubling down on its e-commerce presence to better compete with Amazon, Microsoft has been working on a technology that would eliminate cashiers and checkout lines from stores, Reuters reported last month.
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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 also shown the sample technology to retailers from around the world and has 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, and boost its online presence.
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