Snubbing Amazon, Pentagon hands USD 10 billion ‘war cloud’ deal to Microsoft

SAN FRANCISCO: The Pentagon awarded Microsoft a USD 10 billion cloud computing contract, snubbing early front-runner Amazon, whose competitive bid drew criticism from President Donald Trump and its business rivals.

Bidding for the huge project, known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leading tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against one another. The giant contract has attracted more attention than most, sparked by speculation early in the process that Amazon would be the sole winner of the deal. Tech giants Oracle and IBM pushed back with their own bids and also formally protested the bidding process last year. Oracle later challenged the process in federal court, but lost.