They were innovating from their earliest days (earliest example I remember were the "break-away" pricing labels to resist tag switching)

They were one of their first big enterprises to embrace node.js, contributing in open source, and leveraging it to handle Black Friday traffic.

IMO the online grocery shopping experience is better than Instacart (it's a matter of when, not if, they add home delivery to pickup)

I think the idea that they aren't a technology company is the result of cognitive dissonance between stores and the back-office, that WalMart is the culture that People of WalMart mocks, a bunch of redneck bumpkins from red states.