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Google Wins Shopify as Cloud Customer Amid Fear of Amazon

Google signed a deal with Shopify to help host the company’s online stores on the Alphabet unit’s cloud service.

Google Wins Shopify as Cloud Customer Amid Fear of Amazon
Shopify Inc. signage is seen at the entrance to the company’s headquarters in Toronto. (Photographer: Kevin Van Paassen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Google signed a deal with Shopify Inc. to help host the e-commerce company’s online stores on the Alphabet Inc. unit’s cloud service.

The deal brings a new, fast-growing customer into Google’s fold as cloud chief Diane Greene tries to catch Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. in the lucrative business of internet-based computing.

It’s also another case of a retail-related company choosing Google over Amazon’s cloud. Companies including Home Depot Inc. and Williams-Sonoma Inc. have shunned Amazon Web Services in favor of Microsoft and Google because the e-commerce giant is a rival. In this case, Shopify will still use Amazon for some cloud infrastructure, but the majority will be run by Google.

Ottawa-based Shopify provides websites and tools to help smaller merchants sell online and compete with retailers like Amazon. The company has grown rapidly since its initial public offering in 2015, with its stock gaining more than 700 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gerrit De Vynck in New York at gdevynck@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.