Amazon Says Walmart Is Bullying Its Cloud Clients

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN is accusing rival retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc WMT of bullying its clients, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Walmart reportedly sent a warning to various technology companies that if it wants to do business with the company, it needs to end their business relationship with Amazon's cloud platform, AWS.

The logic behind Walmart's request is simple: A spokesperson for the company told CNBC that while vendors have the right to chose any cloud provider, there are "in which we'd prefer our most sensitive data isn't sitting on a competitor's platform."

Even companies that are subcontracted out by Walmart's vendors were warned to build projects on Azure, a rival service to AWS, or else they will lose the Walmart business.

Naturally, Amazon doesn't see it this way and a spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that Walmart's demands is a tactic to "bully" its vendors which happens to be Amazon's clients. Even retailers that directly compete with Amazon, such as GameStop Corp. GME are AWS clients, which reinforces Amazon's "bully" claims as not being an over-exaggeration.

However, the report shouldn't necessarily come as a surprise. A developer told Wall Street Journal that "everybody knows that Walmart will not play ball with you if you use AWS."

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