- Accenture (NYSE:ACN +0.7%) is partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS), by far the biggest player in the public cloud infrastructure (IaaS) services market, to create the AWS Business Group, an Accenture unit that will offer consulting and IT services to enterprises looking to migrate and/or run workloads on AWS.
- Accenture and Amazon (AMZN) promise to "invest significant resources over multiple years in the development of new services and technology solutions including application migration and development, cloud-based enterprise applications, and analytics and Big Data solutions," and to "train an additional 1,000 Accenture professionals and certify 500 Accenture professionals on the AWS Cloud in the first year."
- Initially, the main focus areas will be "transformation services" for migrating existing apps and developing new apps on AWS, and enabling AWS-powered big data/analytics services. IoT and security-related services will be explored, among others.
- The announcement comes during Amazon's annual AWS re:Invent conference, and a day after Accenture announced a refresh for its cloud services platform. New features include easier virtual machine migration, better data resource control and bill management, and integration with top cloud IT service management (ITSM) software vendor ServiceNow's products.