Microsoft has won the sought-after JEDI cloud computing contract with the Pentagon valued at as much as $10 billion over a decade. Dealing a blow to the market leader, Amazon.com, which had been the front-runner. The decision, which was announced by the Defense Department late Friday, may be challenged by Amazon, according to a person familiar with the matter, because President Donald Trump weighed in on the bidding process. The terms of the competition was also hotly contested by another rival, Oracle.
The Pentagon has said the cloud project, also known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, is intended to help bring American military technology into the modern era.The Defense Department is investing in commercial cloud services, which host computing power and storage in remote data centers, to improve data security and speed up real-time sharing of information across the military. In fact, the Pentagon said the contract was expected to be completed by 2029.
Amazon, which won a lucrative cloud contract with the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013, was long seen to have the upper hand in the competition. But politics entered the picture. Trump has long been at odds with Amazon’s Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos. Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which Trump claims has treated him unfairly in its coverage
Microsoft wins $10 billion Pentagon’s JEDI cloud contract
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