Bezos Gets His Revenge: Amazon Muscles In on Microsoft's $10 Billion Contract The Department of Defense cancels its massive deal with Microsoft and makes room for Amazon.
By Dan Bova
On Tuesday, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced via press release that it is canceling a $10 billion cloud-computing contract with Microsoft called JEDI in favor of a shared contract with Amazon, Microsoft and other qualified service providers.
The original deal, which was to create a cloud storage system for sensitive military data and technology, was mired in controversy, with many speculating that despite Amazon being more qualified for the massive undertaking, Microsoft was awarded the contract due to former Presidents Trump's disdain for Jeff Bezos and the newspaper he owns, The Washingon Post.
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After Microsoft was awarded the contract, Amazon filed a suit with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims arguing that the decision was politically motivated.
The DoD explained in its release that it decided to cancel the Microsoft contract "due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conservancy and industry advances." The Department will now consider proposals from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services and other cloud service providers.
Microsoft responded to the decision with a blog post that read in part: "Because the security of the United States through the provision of critical technology upgrades is more important that any single contract, we respect and accept DoD's decision to move forward on a different path to secure mission-critical technology."
