After months of investigation by the Pentagon, the Department of Defense said friday that he’s adhering to a $ 10 billion cloud computing contract with Microsoft. A Amazon not happy.
As a reminder, Microsoft initially won the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract in October 2019 after battling other tech giants such as IBM, Oracle, and Amazon in a tough, multi-year bidding process. The contract will provide cloud computing services to the US Army and is valued at $ 10 billion for services provided over ten years.
Amazon with its almost 48% market share in the global cloud computing industry, was considered a clear leader for a long time until the final phase of the process. The the answer was quick: Amazon filed a federal complaint claiming that it lost the contract only because President Donald Trump wanted to screw up Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (who, of course, history of contempt is not a secret for a person) and won federal court order suspend project work in February pending an investigation of “no-error bias” and other issues in the procurement process.
But so far, many experts have pointed to possible win for Amazon on revaluationit looks like the e-commerce giant will go again away empty-handed. On Friday, the Department of Defense said in a statement that it “completed a comprehensive re-evaluation of the JEDI Cloud offerings and determined that Microsoft’s offering continues to provide the most value to the government.”
The agency went on to say that the decision does not mean that work will begin immediately, as the temporary injunction in February is still in effect, but it is “very keen to start” working with Microsoft to modernize the Pentagon’s IT infrastructure.
G / O Media can get a commission
In response, Amazon’s cloud computing division, Amazon Web Services, broke into the DoD and Trump in a scathing post to its public sector blog, calling the government’s investigation “nothing more than an attempt to validate a flawed, biased, and politically corrupted decision.”
“On JEDI, President Trump reportedly ordered former Secretary Mattis to ‘screw’ Amazon, blatantly interfered in an active procurement, directed his subordinate to conduct an unorthodox ‘review’ prior to a contract award announcement and then stonewalled an investigation into his own political interference,” the company wrote.
“While corrective action can be used to efficiently resolve protests, in reality, this corrective action changed nothing, wasted five months that could have been spent getting to the bottom of these serious concerns, and was designed solely to distract from our broader concerns and reaffirm a decision that was corrupted by the President’s self-interest.”
Amazon appears to be still struggling with this, as the post says it will continue to conduct a “fair, objective and impartial review” of the procurement process, adding: “We keep asking ourselves if the President of the United States should really be allowed to use the Department of Defense budget to achieve their personal and political goals? “
You can read the entire statement here. TLDR: Amazon is royally pissed and the government can pry this contract from its cold, dead hands.
Microsoft, on the other hand, understandably seemed pleased as punch at the results. In a statement to severalthe shopss, a company spokesman said: “We appreciate that after a thorough review, the Department of Defense has confirmed that we have offered the right technology and the best value for money,” the spokesman said.
Short, looks like jedi saga still isn’t over yet, so grab some popcorn and sit back, guys. This one turns into a fool.
