Walmart takes Amazon battle to the cloud

Walmart is launching a new open source cloud platform that seems aimed at hurting Amazon Web Services (AWS) as much as helping retailers.



The cloud management and application lifecycle management platform, known as OneOps, has been under development at the @WalmartLabs innovation center for two years. Walmart has used OneOps internally to support efforts such as improving its website and deploying online grocery features.



Now, any retailer (or other business) can use OneOps free of charge for coding and supporting cloud-based applications that can be used across a wide range of cloud providers. OneOps even automatically manages, scales and repairs cloud solutions once they are launched.



Walmart has been actively involved in other open source technology projects, but sheer altruism is not likely the only motivating factor. The announcement of OneOps on the @WalmartLabs site makes several references to Walmart not being a cloud provider and wanting to free developers from being locked into any specific cloud platform or bandwidth capability.



Amazon has seen impressive financial performance from its paid AWS hosted cloud business. While OneOps does not provide the same type of secure hosting capabilities as AWS, it does provide a free alternative to AWS’ paid cloud solution development and management services. OpenOps also makes it easier for retailers to move between AWS and other paid hosted cloud environments, if they choose.



Walmart says it is releasing OneOps as an open source offering to enable “any organization to achieve the same cloud portability and developer benefits that (we have) enjoyed.” This statement may have some truth to it, but Walmart has not assumed its dominant position in retail by sharing the ingredients of its success with competitors.



Other moves Walmart has made to take business from Amazon, such as launching a third-party marketplace or offering a competing sale event to Amazon Prime Day, have directly generated revenue and traffic. This time, Walmart is sacrificing profit to the greater goal of impeding Amazon’s performance.