Amazon.com’s request for an injunction to stop the Pentagon’s $10 Billion cloud computing contract with Microsoft (called JEDI) has been granted.
According to documents obtained by TechCrunch, Judge Patricia Elaine Campbell Smith, of the U.S Court of Federal Claims signed on Thursday an order announcing that the preliminary injunction had been granted “until further orders of the court.” In the event that the injunction is deemed invalid, the judge ordered Amazon to post $42,000,000 by February 20.
Since the Department of Defense (DoD), awarded it to Microsoft last autumn, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract (JEDI), has been hotly contested. The contract stipulates that the DoD would use Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to meet its Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service needs. It is valued at $10 billion over a period of 10 years.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Azure — The No. Numbers 1 and 2 respectively — the top cloud vendors by market share — were among the contenders during the JEDI bidding process. The No. 1 and No. 2 cloud vendors by market share — were among the main contenders during JEDI’s bidding process. Also, to a lesser extent, Google, IBM, and Oracle. AWS was widely considered to be the top-runner due to its size. Industry watchers were shocked when the DoD awarded the contract to Azure.
Amazon has made it clear that it intends to protest the Microsoft contract. It believes AWS is a superior platform and that this decision was influenced by President Donald Trump. Trump has a history of public acrimonious relations with Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post.
Amazon filed a complaint in December last year, and then requested a restraining or temporary order in January. Recent documents that were not sealed indicate that Amazon seeks to depose Trump, DoD CIO Dana Deasy and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper as part of its suit.
CNBC’s Frank Shaw, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, stated that he believes the facts will prove that the DoD ran a thorough, fair, and detailed process to determine the warfighter’s needs.
