Walmart Open Sources Its Cloud Platform To Take On Amazon (walmartlabs.com)

Mickeycaskill writes: Walmart is effectively open sourcing its OneOps cloud platform, with the source code set to be uploaded to GitHub at the end of 2015. By making the cloud platform open source, Walmart is taking the fight to Amazon Web Services by giving developers a chance to avoid vendor lock-in. Walmart argues that OneOps has four main advantages: cloud portability, continuous lifecycle management, faster innovation, and great abstraction of cloud environments. The company says that the move should increase competition between cloud service vendors. "We're enabling any organization to achieve the same cloud portability and developer benefits that Walmart has enjoyed,"said Jeremy King, CTO of Walmart Global eCommerce and head of WalmartLabs.

Comments

Re: Has The Whole World Gone Topsy Turvy?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Dude, go back to the cows.

Walmart is first and foremost a tech company . Their computerized logistics chain is the essential technology that enables them to be a multinational behemoth rather than a typical regional discount store chain. This has been true for decades.

Walmart pioneered digital supply chain in 1970s

[perpenso]

Walmart computerized their inventory, supply chain, ordering and payments back in the 1970s. This includes automation, inventory at a store gets to a certain level and a shipment order is automatically generated to resupply from a distribution center. Distribution center gets to a certain level and excess is transferred from other distribution centers or a digital purchase order gets sent to the product's manufacturer.

Cash registers were networked to the minicomputer in the store, reporting all transactions. Stores were networked to HQ via satellite and reported sales every 15 minutes. HQ did massive data mining at national, regional, state and local levels. Optimizing store inventory for local tastes. Again, 1970s.

Their data mining was such that recognized patterns were added to the automated supply chain management. For example when hurricanes are forecast pop tart sales spike in florida and the gulf. Their software monitors weather reports and when hurricanes are forecast they automatically ship pop tarts from midwest distribution centers to florida and the gulf.

Amazon followed where Walmart pioneered. Don't be so sure Walmart can not pose a serious threat with respect to logistics and supply chain management.