For Atos, the future will be written alongside Amazon Web Services (AWS). Indeed, the French IT group has just signed a new partnership with the American cloud giant. In this sense, AWS will now be considered Atos’ preferred enterprise cloud provider, while the tricolor company is designated by the Seattle octopus as its strategic partner for IT outsourcing and data center transformation.
As part of this alliance, Atos will offer managed hybrid cloud services, which will be based on AWS solutions, to 800 of its most important customers. The agreement also provides for 3,000 Atos employees to be trained in the latest AWS technologies, so as to obtain more than 20,000 certifications from the American group in the cloud. “This partnership represents a significant new step in the transformation of Atos”estimates Nourdine Bihmane, managing director of the group since this summer.
Atos took the cloud shift too slowly
The partnership, announced at AWS’s annual conference in Las Vegas, aims to boost Atos’ revenue growth in the outsourcing segment, which has been on the decline in recent years. These have indeed suffered from the surge in the cloud market, which has benefited providers like AWS more than outsourcers like Atos. It is therefore quite funny to see the tricolor group teaming up with the American cloud giant, world leader in the sector with 39% market share.
Nevertheless, Atos, which took too slowly the turn of the cloud to compensate for the decline of its historical outsourcing activities, finds itself today back to the wall not to miss the boat in the cloud. Consequently, the French group is turning to players like AWS to move up a gear, and since the agreement between the two parties is not exclusive, other partnerships of the same type could follow in the future, with the other industry heavyweights such as Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, for example.
By joining forces with AWS, Atos could be tempted to follow the same path as Thales with Google, or Orange and Capgemini with Microsoft, to offer a “cloud of trust” to its customers. This type of partnership could allow the tricolor company to get its head above water while it is in turmoil. After a nightmarish 2021, marked in particular by a net loss of 2.96 billion euros, it is about to split in two. The first entity would retain the name Atos and would bring together the group’s outsourcing activities, while the second, called Evidian, would bring together activities in cybersecurity and data analysis. This operation could be completed at the end of the first half of 2023.