Target is one of Google Cloud’s newest big customers, furthering a trend of major retailers opting to join up with Amazon Web Services’ cloud rivals as they do battle with Amazon on the commerce front.
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Target “is migrating key areas of its business to the Google Cloud platform,” during a call with investors following Google parent Alphabet’s latest financials Monday. The announcement follows reports last year that Target was shopping for a new cloud provider, reportedly deciding it wanted to scale back business with a company it is also competing with in Amazon.
Word of this deal comes just a few days after the announcement that Amazon rivals Walmart and Microsoft are teaming up on a five-year plan for “a broad set of cloud innovation projects.”
AWS has retained a huge lead in the cloud market, but these recent announcements show that competitors are jumping on the trend of wooing Amazon’s retail competitors away from AWS. At Microsoft Inspire, the company’s annual partner conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted the deal with Walmart and its work with top grocer Kroger.
Expect Google to take a similar tact at its own big event this week, Google Cloud Next. The company has planned several sessions highlighting retailers that have transitioned to the cloud and offerings targeted toward retailers.
