Pentagon Awards $10 Billion Contract To Microsoft Over Front-Runner Amazon

[kevinUsa]

The Pentagon awarded a $10 billion, 10-year contract to Microsoft over Amazon on Friday, ending a heavily scrutinized battle over which tech giant would largely manage the military's cloud computing services.

The massive contract — known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud contract — was widely expected to be awarded to Amazon Web Services, or AWS, which also manages the cloud computing services for the Central Intelligence Agency.

"We're surprised about this conclusion. AWS is the clear leader in cloud computing, and a detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings clearly lead to a different conclusion," an AWS spokesperson told NPR in a statement.

Amazon's potential procurement of the contract was met with heavy criticism by other competitors, Republicans in Congress and eventually by President Trump, who has long been engaged in a largely one-sided feud with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

TECHNOLOGY

Pentagon Pauses $10 Billion Contract That Embroiled Amazon In Controversy

BOOK REVIEWS

Top Aide To Former Defense Chief James Mattis Recounts What The General Has Not

The winner-take-all bidding for the contract began in early 2018, and critics — including another competitor for the contract, Oracle — have argued that the Defense Department has unfairly favored Amazon over other potential vendors. Oracle and IBM unsuccessfully sued to block the award. The Government Accountability Office determined the bidding process to be fair.

Those concerns eventually made their way to Capitol Hill. In June, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., requested that the Defense Department delay the awarding of the contract pending an investigation of conflicts of interest. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., urged the Pentagon in July to consider multiple vendors for its cloud computing services.

Also in July, Trump addressed the issue directly.

"I'm getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon," Trump told reporters. "We're getting tremendous, really, complaints from other companies and from great companies."

"I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what's going on because I have had very few things where there's been such complaining," he said. "We'll take a very strong look at it."

In early August, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the Pentagon would reexamine the project before announcing a winner. Esper recused himself this week of any decisions involving the cloud contract.

 

The Pentagon's pausing of the contract bid process raised concerns that the president intervened in the awarding of the defense contract, which would be a violation of federal acquisition laws, according to The Washington Post.

It’s important that we maintain a fair & competitive process for DoD contracts, but for the President to use the power of his office to punish critics in the media would be a complete abuse of power. This does not pass the smell test & we need some answershttps://t.co/3CqbwEXuX1

— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) August 2, 2019

Trump has an openly contentious relationship with Amazon and in particular with The Washington Post, which Bezos owns and is a frequent target of the president's ire.

So to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post. Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2019

In a new book, Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis, Guy Snodgrass, a retired Navy commander who worked closely with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, writes that Trump called and directed Mattis to "screw Amazon" by locking it out of a chance to bid for the JEDI contract. According to Snodgrass, Mattis told him and others: "We're not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically."

In a statement detailing the award, the Defense Department said:

"The acquisition process was conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. The process cleared review by the GAO and Court of Federal Claims. At the outset the competition included four different offerors. All offerors were treated fairly and evaluated consistently with the solicitation's stated evaluation criteria. Prior to the award, the department conferred with the DOD Inspector General, which informed the decision to proceed."

NPR reached out to Microsoft, but a spokesperson has not yet commented on the award.

In managing the JEDI contract, Microsoft will be responsible for storing massive amounts of sensitive military data and giving the U.S. military access to technologies like artificial intelligence.

"We must improve the speed and effectiveness with which we develop and deploy modernized technical capabilities to our women and men in uniform," Dana Deasy, the Defense Department's chief information officer, said in a statement. "This award is an important step in execution of the Digital Modernization Strategy."

[r2d2]

Screw Amazon 😀

[kevinUsa]

19 minutes ago, r2d2 said:

Screw Amazon 😀

recently started to  learn azure 

  even though they less service compared to amazon 

 the services what they provide are very robust. 

 

[pittagoda]

1 hour ago, kevinUsa said:

recently started to  learn azure 

  even though they less service compared to amazon 

 the services what they provide are very robust. 

 

Nuvvu keka babu..

Try azure architect.. Get certification.. No coding required anta..my friend 6 months nunchie working.. 

[CNR]

Very sad picking up contract based on bias feelings . Amazon was first runner for contract based on requirements but due to politics Amazon lost it. 

I believe eventually they will come to Amazon again because all other agencies are in AWS .

Netflix stack is running in AWS . Have you ever noticed downtime in netflix last 10 yrs that resilience is aws

[pittagoda]

32 minutes ago, CNR said:

Very sad picking up contract based on bias feelings . Amazon was first runner for contract based on requirements but due to politics Amazon lost it. 

I believe eventually they will come to Amazon again because all other agencies are in AWS .

Netflix stack is running in AWS . Have you ever noticed downtime in netflix last 10 yrs that resilience is aws

Same goes for Azure.

And Netflix, VISA etc goes down once or twice a year due to AWS. 

[CNR]

18 minutes ago, pittagoda said:

Same goes for Azure.

And Netflix, VISA etc goes down once or twice a year due to AWS. 

Azure is no way near to Aws in terms of services offering or Reliability. Read gartner report why AWS is better in Iaas and Paas.

 

 

[kevinUsa]

31 minutes ago, CNR said:

Azure is no way near to Aws in terms of services offering or Reliability. Read gartner report why AWS is better in Iaas and Paas.

 

 

with  pile of cash Microsoft has its not a big deal for MS to develop them 

 

[hyperbole]

5 minutes ago, kevinUsa said:

with  pile of cash Microsoft has its not a big deal for MS to develop them 

 

having money doesn’t mean jack in technology world..look at how they lost to android and ios in mobile wars.

in the cloud they are distant second to aws, they are leveraging their existing enterprise relationships to broker azure offerings

[futureofandhra]

2 hours ago, hyperbole said:

having money doesn’t mean jack in technology world..look at how they lost to android and ios in mobile wars.

in the cloud they are distant second to aws, they are leveraging their existing enterprise relationships to broker azure offerings

No one believed Microsoft today decade ago it's different

Even Intel lost due to chip to Apple n Android itself is different there is nothing Microsoft to loose they didn't gain

Anything can happen

[Kool_SRG]

Andhrolla kutra..