Amazon is a recent newcomer to education, and edtech companies should take note and care about this new direction for the global retailer.

In an arena where Microsoft, Apple and Google have been the main players, Amazon is quickly moving ahead in education. As the world’s largest retailer, Amazon’s mission has been clear: reach out globally, put the customer first, and offer the greatest product selection with the best service. That’s what they are doing in education, too.

Now edtech companies can take advantage of Amazon’s strategy by partnering with Amazon Web Services.

The Amazon presence

No market is off the table for Amazon. This digital warehouse began by selling Kindle e-readers in schools, along with the books to put on them. They even offered school rewards by giving back up to 15% through their Amazon Associates Program for non-profits.

Now Amazon is retailing cloud storage as well through Amazon Web Services.

Chances are that many of the schools you know are using Amazon Web Services partner products like Remind and Blackboard. The solutions are helping schools embrace edtech products as a solution to their challenges in education. Teachers can do more, manage better, and intervene more quickly because of edtech solutions.

Amazon is already addressing one of the edtech pain points by providing a way to securely warehouse student data in the cloud. They’ve also created organizational systems for managing that data.

For educators, that means easy access to information and more time for instruction.

What’s in it for edtech?

For edtech companies, that means offering partner products through Amazon.

You can bring your scalable innovations to life by maximizing your own investment, and Amazon Web Services can help you. Amazon’s Edstart for Edtech Startups provides small edtech companies with plenty of business perks like training and community forum access.

Armed with a formidable arsenal of technology, Amazon is also streamlining educational technology by making an investment in providing learning management systems that are easy to use, efficient to deploy and cost-effective. That’s a huge boon for school districts seeking ways to make their limited budgets go further while remaining current in technology. It’s also a boon for edtech companies needing cloud computing services. Amazon offers the flexible and agile infrastructure you need.

Creative edtech startups can gain the advantage with Amazon Web Services, and that’s why edtech companies should care about Amazon’s emergence in education.