Posted on 02/13/2020 12:46:06 PM PST by yesthatjallen
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to halt its work on a controversial cloud-computing contract amid a court challenge by Amazon, notching a major win for the tech giant as it seeks to prove that President Trump improperly interfered to keep the $10 billion contract away from Amazon.
The Court of Federal Claims is granting Amazon's request to stop the Pentagon from forging ahead with the cloud-computing project until the lawsuit is settled. The Department of Defense was planning to work with Microsoft, the company that received the contract over Amazon last year, to implement a sweeping cloud infrastructure across the entire department despite Amazon's legal challenge.
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Amazon in January asked the court to stop Microsoft from working with the Pentagon to implement the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, arguing that the project should be put on hold until the courts work out whether Microsoft deserved to receive the lucrative deal.
The request comes amid a lawsuit from Amazon alleging the Pentagon allowed Trump to exert "improper influence" over the contract process, ultimately steering the cloud-computing project away from the online retail giant and toward Microsoft. Amazon, the leader in the cloud-computing marketplace, was the clear front-runner in the competition before Trump began publicly intervening in the process last summer.
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(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
And in my opinion, flimsy standing.
Seems to me that any 'cloud' involved in our national defense should be one created and operated exclusively by/for the Pentagon's primary mission.
Of course they'll need the regular internet for pr0n, shopping, etc, but the nuts/bolts stuff that protects our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and citizens should NOT be trusted to anyone else's server farms.
The Pentagon has the resources to attract the best IT people in the country and there's no logical reason not to keep that ultimately vital task in-house.
/.02
Contract award disputes are common in DoD.
I know nothing what exactly the actual contract is for...
The big players are the usual suspects... Amazon, Google and MS
I’ve always said this to my family that amazon was created in the basement of HELL!! I really believe Bezos( is evil) will help usher the anti christ! He has a lot of power and wealth at his disposal!! If he wanted to he could easily create and fund a military unit without breaking a sweat! Someday soon Bezos will control our everyday life necessities!!
Order a DoD security review of the RFP and let them find that cloud computing for DoD is too high a security risk and cancel the program altogether.
I’ve never sent bezos a dime.
MAGA
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple.
“Having Amazon handle dod stuff is frightening.”
So, you think Microsoft is any better than Amazon?
That is frightening...
I suspect that Amazon will be forfeiting the 42 million. Had the same experience with Honeywell protesting all their failed awards. A good RFP team will have dotted all the Is and crossed their Ts. I seriously doubt that Trump called the Pentagon and told them to not award the contract to Amazon. Probably didn’t even know about it in advance. Gov’t should go after more than 42 million for the delays.
The contract may or may not have been improperly awarded. Contract disputes are common.
The judges ruling, however, appears to be overstepping.
This is so disturbing and SO dirty and SO fishy you have no choice but to ask what illegitimate deep state entities and foreign powers MUST HAVE the country’s data on Amazon so it can be compromised as they intend?
Strange. I suppose if the government is forced to hand the contract over to Amazon, then Amazon can start making defense policy on its own.
We have the best justice system that money can buy.
Azure sucks. It is far from ready for production. It also has a lousy uptime.
Same thing happened when F-35 contract was awarded. The loser sued. The settlement was that both vendors got to make the winning configuration.
That’s what Amazon is hoping for.
They know whoever has this tech, will dominante both civilian and government spaces.
They need to be able to grow in the space, the future of their stock value depends on it.
They won’t give up without spending a few billions in court.
Just what is the President allowed to do anymore?
Two words: National Security.
If the judge feels a challenge is warranted, fine, but halting all progress on what I assume is important to national security is judicial over-reach.
Trump can go to a federal appeals court to get an stay on the injunction from the Court of Federal Claims, allowing work to continue until any suits are settled.
Knowing that course will increase the federal case for leaving the work with Microsoft for the term of the contract will likely cause Amazon to cease its suit. Biding its time to the future renewal of that contract and hoping for a different administration then.
Amazon. Making things fast and cheap. They’ll do to DoD what they’ve done for Whole Foods, lol.
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