Amazon scores a temporary block on Microsoft's JEDI contract

[nanoguy]

In brief: Amazon thinks President Donald Trump was uniquely responsible for rigging the evaluation process that ruled it out of a multi-billion dollar cloud contract with the Pentagon, just as it was well-positioned to win. The tech giant has managed to block the federal government's decision to hire Microsoft, pending a close review that is unlikely to lead to a different conclusion.

Back in November 2019, Microsoft was awarded an intensely sought-after contract to supply the Defense Department's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project with cloud services. Several tech giants had competed for the privilege, but none of them as fiercely as Amazon, who didn't stop fighting and challenged the Pentagon's decision in federal court.

This week, a judge ordered a temporary block on Microsoft's right to work on the $10 billion contract just one month after Amazon filed a motion requesting a closer examination of the motives behind the decision. The notice for the injunction wasn't made public, and there's little indication as to the exact reasons behind it, reports CNBC.

Amazon thought it was the frontrunner in the race to securing the JEDI contract and was understandably upset about losing a lot of business to one of its biggest competitors in the cloud space. The tech giant challenged the thinking behind Pentagon's choice, claiming that President Trump had "launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy — Jeffrey P. Bezos."

That is why earlier this week, unsealed court documents showed that Amazon wants to question President Trump, as well as Defense Department's Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and former Defense Secretary James Mattis. In Amazon's eyes, the whole evaluation process that ruled it out for the contract was full of "deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias."

From Trump's perspective, all he did was look into the JEDI contract following complaints that awarding it to Amazon would constitute a case of favoritism.

Microsoft's Vice President of Communications Frank Shaw issued a statement expressing the company's disappointment.

"While we are disappointed with the additional delay, we believe that we will ultimately be able to move forward with the work to make sure those who serve our country can access the new technology they urgently require. We have confidence in the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough, and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft."

The new cloud computing network was supposed to become active today, so Amazon has been advised to prepare for the possibility that it may lose the case. If it turns out that the injunction was issued wrongfully, the company may have to have $42 million at the ready to cover "costs and damages." Microsoft and Amazon are both expected to respond to the filing by February 27.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/84014-amazon-scores-temporary-block-microsoft-jedi-contract.html

 

[Forebode]

Could it just be for show? 42mil isn't that much to them.
If they feel that strongly they should like why they would be better, publicly. I wonder if Microsoft leveraged their vast selection of software and services with discounts. In the previous year the non govclouds comparison was that AWS was more expensive, not by much though. As far as being upfront, I found that the MS calculator is much better.

Hopefully they had a trial of both, to at least gauge the performance/support.

 

[captaincranky]

Could M$ have promised to divert telemetry from Windows 10 to the government cloud? Maybe that's why they got the nod.

Note: I' wasn't this paranoid until Windows 10 visited itself upon us.

 

[ShagnWagn]

Oh, I'm sure we can trust either one of these companies with our government's topmost sensitive data... With this much money, why aren't they just building their own? I don't trust the privacy of anything put out on the storm cloud. You are also paying extremely high amounts of money to RENT someone else's computers.

I can't comment on this either way because I do not have first-hand knowledge. The news media is also going to leverage wording to establish hate against one person. This is going to cost us millions of $ in litigation crap. Of course, it's all about money. It's apparent bezos doesn't think he has enough money...

It is absolutely how amazing this term "cloud" has duped so many people to shoveling money away. More like storm cloud - open to every hacker on the entire planet. /facepalm

 

[Lionvibez]

Amazon makes 42 million in like 30 seconds so not a big deal. To them its worth spending 42 million to try and win back a 10 Billion dollar contract.

 

[psycros]

Could M$ have promised to divert telemetry from Windows 10 to the government cloud? Maybe that's why they got the nod.

Note: I' wasn't this paranoid until Windows 10 visited itself upon us.

Its possible. Microsoft went above and beyond in aiding the NSA's secret program of electronic surveillance. Despite putting on a show about their "concerns" regarding secret and/or illegal wiretapping both parties adore it and their actions bear that out. Microsoft is very much a Big State company and just like other tech giants they pay their blackmail to liberal causes since that's who controls the attack media. This earns them a pass from the leftist shakedown artists to keep right on being ruthless, no-rules capitalists who will happily sell out their users.

 

[OortCloud]

This earns them a pass from the leftist shakedown artists to keep right on being ruthless, no-rules capitalists who will happily sell out their users.

Funniest thing I've read all day - I think you might have watched too many episodes of Mr Robot.

 

[m3diapers]

What I heard is that Microsoft hires more veterans than Amazon. Although they both paid almost no federal taxes last year and hires vets, MS at least shares some of the government responsibility to take care veterans. On the other hand, Amazon only hires vets with clearances, obviously, assumes they would win the contract, only hires people who can work on the JEDI contract, rather contributing to the society.