Amazon and Microsoft just scored a huge $100 million cloud deal that can't be making IBM too happy

Business Insider ^ | 08/31/2015 | Julie Bort

[SeekAndFind]

Amazon and Microsoft are quickly becoming the king and queen of cloud computing.

Here's another case in point: the two of them just won a huge contract with the FAA, led by IT consultant CSC. This contract will consolidate the FCC's data centers, moving data to both Amazon's cloud Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft's cloud, Azure.

CSC says the contract is worth $108 million out of the gate, and because its a long-term contract, could be worth as much as $1 billion over the next 10 years.

The FAA isn't getting rid of its data centers altogether to run on AWS and Azure (although that is increasingly becoming a thing that huge companies like Netflix and Yahama of America are doing — both of whom are using AWS).

The FAA is just trying to shrink its data centers and use the two clouds as much as it can — a type of cloud computing known as "hybrid" computing. A lot of big organizations are moving towards hybrid computing these days, rather than ditching their own data centers altogether.

The most interesting thing about this announcement: IBM was left out in the cold.

[Don Corleone]

The FAA and its Air Traffic Control function are roughly 10 years behind Europe and the rest of the world. Its not so much a technology problem as it is a union problem.