Pentagon Scraps Cloud Contract with Microsoft, Challenged by Amazon
The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that it canceled a cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could have been worth up to $10 billion, more than a year after Amazon mounted a legal challenge to the awarding of the contract.
Amazon contended in December 2019 that “improper pressure from President Donald J. Trump” led the Defense Department to award the contract to Microsoft, along with what it called “egregious errors” by the DoD in evaluating the bids. However, Pentagon chief information officer John Sherman said on Tuesday that “the landscape has evolved” and the Defense Department will now weigh new bids for cloud computing services.
The Pentagon did not reference the ongoing litigation in its announcement.
“With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD’s capability gaps,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
Sherman told reporters that the Pentagon would embark on a new cloud-computing initiative called the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability program. Both Microsoft and Amazon could be awarded contracts for parts of the program along with Google, IBM, and Oracle.
A Defense Department Inspector General report concluded that it could not back Amazon’s allegations of improper political influence by the Trump administration. The former president was a vocal critic of Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos.
