Summary: Microsoft recently signed a seven-year agreement with Walgreens Boots Alliance for Azure, Office 365 and other services. The retailer will move most of its IT workloads to Azure and sign up over 360k employees to applications including Office 365, Windows 10 and mobility and security tools. The partners will also explore setting up joint innovation centres. Another nice win for Microsoft and a similar story to the deal it agreed with Walmart last year: many retailers are eschewing AWS as they compete with Amazon’s online (and increasingly physical) retail efforts (Amazon recently acquired online pharmacy PillPack). However, the scope of partnership is much broader than the provision of IT and related services as it envisages the joint development of new healthcare delivery models, such as next-generation health networks and new healthcare solutions. There is increasingly a vertical focus at Microsoft as it tries to differentiate. There is also a competitive angle here as Amazon also has healthcare ambitions beyond retail: it has teamed up with J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway on a long-term plan to improve healthcare and reduce costs for employees.
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