Microsoft is reportedly on the verge of signing Amazon as a customer for its Microsoft 365 productivity suite. The deal would involve more than a billion dollars (945 million euros).
This is what Business Insider reports based on internal documents and sources. The Microsoft 365 contract with Amazon has a term of five years and would cover more than one million Microsoft 365 licenses.
Switch in November
The new contract means Amazon could be set to transition from its current on-premises Microsoft Office tools to the cloud-based Microsoft 365 version. Starting next month, the transition is expected to begin. This is when the Microsoft productivity tools will gain AI functionality through Copilot, among others. Most Amazon employees are expected to transition in early 2024.
The deal is quite remarkable, as until now Amazon has always avoided switching to Microsoft 365. This is because the tech giant did not want its corporate data to be hosted in a competitor’s public cloud environment.
Amazon itself has also developed its own productivity tools, such as WorkDocs and Chime, but they are not particularly popular among employees, as well as external customers.
Both Microsoft and Amazon did not comment on the rumours.
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