Amazon scores a temporary block on Microsoft's JEDI contract
0Reported today on TechSpot
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Amazon scores a temporary block on Microsoft's JEDI contract
Ain't no rest for the wicked, $10 billion don't grow on trees
In brief: Amazon thinks President Donald Trump was uniquely responsible for rigging the evaluation process that ruled it out of a multi-billion dollar cloud contract with the Pentagon, just as it was well-positioned to win. The tech giant has managed to block the federal government's decision to hire Microsoft, pending a close review that is unlikely to lead to a different conclusion.
Back in November 2019, Microsoft was awarded an intensely sought-after contract to supply the Defense Department's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project with cloud services. Several tech giants had competed for the privilege, but none of them as fiercely as Amazon, who didn't stop fighting and challenged the Pentagon's decision in federal court.
This week, a judge ordered a temporary block on Microsoft's right to work on the $10 billion contract just one month after Amazon filed a motion requesting a closer examination of the motives behind the decision. The notice for the injunction wasn't made public, and there's little indication as to the exact reasons behind it, reports CNBC.
Amazon thought it was the frontrunner in the race to securing the JEDI contract and was understandably upset about losing a lot of business to one of its biggest competitors in the cloud space. The tech giant challenged the thinking behind Pentagon's choice, claiming that President Trump had "launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy - Jeffrey P. Bezos."
That is why earlier this week, unsealed court documents show