Sorry, Amazon, Microsoft wins JEDI agreement once more on re-evaluation

Following a monthslong investigation by the Pentagon, the Division of Protection reported Friday that it is sticking with Microsoft for its $10 billion cloud computing deal. And Amazon is not joyful.

As a brief refresher: Microsoft was initially awarded the Joint Company Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, deal in Oct 2019 following experiencing off versus other tech giants like IBM, Oracle, and Amazon in a intense, yearslong bidding method. The contract would deliver cloud computing expert services to the U.S. Army and is valued at as considerably as $10 billion for providers rendered about a ten years.

Amazon, with its practically 48% market share in the world wide cloud computing sector, was long viewed as to be the distinct frontrunner until eventually the process’s remaining section. The pushback was swift: Amazon filed a federal courtroom complaint boasting that it only shed the deal simply because President Donald Trump desired to “screw” about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (which, granted, Trump’s history of disdain for the man is not particularly a mystery) and received a federal court docket injunction in February to pause get the job done on the job pending an investigation into “unmistakable bias” and other troubles in the procurement system.

But even though quite a few industry experts pointed to a achievable get for Amazon upon revaluation, it seems to be like the e-commerce huge will but again walk absent vacant-handed. On Friday, the Division of Protection mentioned in a statement that it “has accomplished its complete re-evaluation of the JEDI Cloud proposals and decided that Microsoft’s proposal continues to stand for the best price to the Federal government.”

The company went on to say that this determination does not indicate operate will start off quickly considering that February’s momentary injunction even now stands, but it is “eager to begin” performing with Microsoft to modernize the Pentagon’s IT infrastructure.

In reaction, Amazon’s cloud-computing arm, Amazon World-wide-web Providers, tore into the DoD and Trump in a scathing publish to its general public sector weblog, contacting the government’s investigation “nothing extra than an try to validate a flawed, biased, and politically corrupted choice.”

“On JEDI, President Trump reportedly purchased previous Secretary Mattis to ‘screw’ Amazon, blatantly interfered in an energetic procurement, directed his subordinate to conduct an unorthodox ‘review’ prior to a deal award announcement and then stonewalled an investigation into his have political interference,” the corporation wrote.

“While corrective motion can be applied to proficiently resolve protests, in reality, this corrective motion transformed almost nothing, wasted five months that could have been invested having to the base of these serious problems, and was made entirely to distract from our broader worries and reaffirm a choice that was corrupted by the President’s self-fascination.”

Amazon seemingly is not finished combating this still, as the article states it will go on to pursue a “fair, aim and impartial review” of the procurement procedure, introducing: “The concern we proceed to ask ourselves is irrespective of whether the President of the United States must be permitted to use the budget of the Department of Defense to pursue his individual personal and political ends?”

You can study the assertion in full here. TLDR: Amazon is royally pissed and the governing administration can pry this contract from its chilly, useless arms.

Microsoft, on the other hand, understandably seemed pleased as punch at the success. In a assertion to multiple outletss, a enterprise spokesperson claimed, “We enjoy that following very careful assessment, the DoD verified that we presented the appropriate technologies and the greatest value,” the spokesperson claimed.

In small, it appears the JEDI saga however isn’t above so get some popcorn and settle in, folks. This one’s shaping up to be a doozy.