Boeing Taps Amazon, Microsoft and Google for Cloud Mega-Deal
Boeing is rebooting its technology to help address quality lapses and production gremlins that drive up costs of developing new aircraft.
April 06, 2022 at 12:41 PM
2 minute read
Boeing Co. is hiring the three biggest U.S. cloud-computing companies — Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google — to help with a digital makeover aimed at giving its airplane designers and software developers more tools.
The multiyear agreements are intended to upgrade the company's current system of hosting and maintaining software applications through a network of servers, which can be difficult to maintain, the Chicago-based manufacturer told employees Wednesday. Boeing plans to shift hundreds of applications to the cloud, where they'll be stored and maintained in the tech giants' data centers.
The manufacturing titan is rebooting its technology to help address quality lapses and production gremlins that drive up costs of developing new aircraft. The planemaker is investing in tools such as digital twins — virtual replicas of actual hardware — to model both the performance of its new aircraft concepts and the assembly lines that would build them.
"These partnerships will strengthen our ability to test a system — or an aircraft — hundreds of times using digital twin technology before it is deployed," Susan Doniz, Boeing's chief information officer, said in a post on LinkedIn.
Boeing didn't disclose the financial terms of the new arrangement. The Information had reported last year that Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft's Azure were competing for a contract worth more than $1 billion over several years.
Boeing is the latest big tech customer to split its business among multiple cloud providers, eschewing a centralized approach promoted by Amazon. That company, which leads the cloud market, urges customers to go "all in" on AWS. Microsoft and Google, the No. 2 and No. 3 U.S.-based providers, advocate a "multicloud" approach of the sort Boeing is taking.
Boeing has already worked with the companies on a limited basis and will avoid disrupting existing cloud-supported products by keeping all three on board, a spokeswoman said. While the manufacturer eliminated 600 jobs when it outsourced its information-technology infrastructure to Dell Technologies Inc. last year, it doesn't plan to lay off workers with the latest pacts.
Julie Johnsson and Matt Day report for Bloomberg News.
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Law Firms Mentioned
Trending Stories
- 1The Law Firm Disrupted: For Big Law Names, Shorter is Sweeter
- 2Wine, Dine and Grind (Through the Weekend): Summer Associates Thirst For Experience in 'Real Matters'
- 3'That's Disappointing': Only 11% of MDL Appointments Went to Attorneys of Color in 2023
- 4What We Know About the Kentucky Judge Killed in His Chambers
- 5'I'm Staying Everything': Texas Bankruptcy Judge Halts Talc Trials Against J&J
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250