AWS and Microsoft Azure Join Forces on Multicloud Networking

AWS and Microsoft Azure have collaborated to expand multicloud networking, according to Amazon Web Services (AWZ). This unusual commercial tie-up between the two largest hyperscalers is significant because it directly competes for enterprise workloads.

Historically, such collaborations reflect customer pull rather than strategic convergence. Large enterprises demand interoperability across clouds as a condition of spend. The precedent in enterprise technology is that multicloud plumbing announcements tend to be accretive to both parties' workload capture over time rather than margin-dilutive.

The distinction worth drawing is between genuine technical integration, which shifts switching costs and stickiness, and co-marketing arrangements, which change little. The depth of the networking interoperability described will determine which this is.