📈 Cloud nine.

Microsoft lures rival Amazon as a cloud services customer

Did you know Amazon offers an online document editor called WorkDocs? I didn’t, and they seemingly don’t either, which is why they’re signing up for Microsoft’s version instead. Who would have guessed one of the biggest rivalries in tech would be eased by word processing software?

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Amazon set to become a Microsoft customer in $1 billion deal

Microsoft and Amazon have not always been the most natural bedfellows. The tech giants spar in the cloud computing arena, where they’re two of the dominant players. That might be about to change.

Microsoft is preparing to bring on Amazon as a major customer of its 365 productivity tools ($), according to Insider, which cites an internal document and a person familiar with the situation. Amazon has committed $1 billion over five years as it shifts from an on-premise version of Microsoft Office to the cloud version.

The deal is a big win for Microsoft. The two Seattle-based companies rarely work together, and Amazon was reportedly hesitant to use Microsoft’s cloud products because they didn’t want their data sitting on a competitor’s server. Now Amazon is expected to start setting up the new systems in early November, around the time that Microsoft releases a version with AI capabilities.

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