Pentagon’s review of controversial $10B contract was a sham, Amazon claims
Amazon says DOD actions were “political cronyism” and review was “illusory.” …
reader comments
78 with 61 posters participating
Amazon is continuing to fight the Department of Defense over a $10 billion contract, as the Pentagon has completed its review of the deal and determined once again that it was correct to award the entire project to Microsoft.
The DOD launched bidding for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project, a massive cloud-computing contract, in 2019. By April of that year, the shortlist was down to two finalists: Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure. Amazon was widely considered the favorite, and many industry watchers expressed surprise when Microsoft ultimately landed the deal in October 2019.
Amazon filed suit, alleging that the decision was politically motivated and quoting President Donald Trump’s alleged intention to “screw Amazon.” In February of this year, a federal judge agreed to order an injunction on the deal pending the outcome of the case.
The DOD launched its own initial investigation of the contract process. That review, which concluded in April, determined that the DOD did nothing wrong in awarding the contract to Microsoft—even though the White House stonewalled investigators and refused to provide witnesses for the probe.
The agency this spring also launched a reconsideration of specific parts of the contract. That review concluded just before the Labor Day holiday weekend, with the Pentagon reaffirming that “Microsoft’s proposal continues to represent the best deal to the government.” Work on the contract, however, cannot begin while the injunction is in place.
Microsoft applauded the DOD’s decision. “We appreciate that after careful
Continue reading – Article source
