Amazon has moved a motion in a US Court of Federal Claims urging it to stop Microsoft from working on a multibillion-dollar cloud computing project. The company wants the court to stall the project until the Court of Federal Claims decides whether the tech giant deserved to receive the project. The USD 10 billion project is expected to run for around 10 years and aimed at providing cloud services to the US military. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure or JEDI contract was awarded to Microsoft in October last year. A month later, Amazon filed a notice in the US Court protesting the decision to select Microsoft. It claimed that there were deficiencies and unmistakable bias in allotting the project.
Amazon is also suing the DOD over allegations that it allowed President Donald Trump to exert political interference over the contract process. Because of his influence the project was snatched from Amazon and given to Microsoft, the online retail giant claimed. It is also a well known fact that the US President has always been critical of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. He often criticize The Washington Post which is owned by Bezos. Amazon was clearly the front-runner until Trump started intervening in the process. Amazon Web Services said that it is extremely important to evaluate political interference and evaluation errors that impacted the Jedi award. “It is a common practice to put on hold contract performance pending a protest,” Amazon Web Services said. Even as Amazon moves court, Microsoft and the Pentagon are moving forward to lay the groundwork for the JEDI project.
Companies like Google, IBM, Oracle, and Amazon were eyeing for the JEDI project. Amazon Web Services not only dominates the cloud computing market but has some of the major government contracts like with the CIA. This is why it was considered to be the probable winner of the contract. But in a surprise move, Microsoft emerged victories. Pentagon issued a statement saying that allocation was made after proper and fair consideration. It emphasized that the decision was taken without any external influence. Soon after the announcement was made, the impact was visible on the stocks of both the companies. The JEDI project is expected to provide US military better access to cloud and data from battlefields.
