MILANO – Amazon beats Microsoft in the Pentagon’s cloud dispute. Yesterday, the US Department of Defense announced that it had canceled Jedi (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), the contract for the supply of a ‘cloud’ service worth 10 billion dollars awarded to Microsoft in 2019.
The Jedi, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure “no longer centers our needs in light of evolving requirements and industry advances,” announced the Pentagon in a statement, in what is seen as a victory for Jeff’s giant. Bezos. Yesterday the stock closed on Wall Street with a rise of 4.69%, a growth that further increased the assets of Bezos by 8.4 billion, no longer CEO but still a solid shareholder of the company, at 211 billions of dollars.
Amazon, Jassy a 200 million share package to succeed Bezos
Amazon had fought hard against the Defense Department’s decision to award Microsoft the maxi-order, considering the choice politically motivated given the dislike of the then President Donald Trump towards Amazon and Bezos. A theory that was only partially dismantled by the review of the race, from which it emerged that a complete assessment of a possible ethical misconduct could not be drawn up given the limited collaboration of the White House in the examination. “We respect and accept” the Pentagon’s decision “to move down a different path,” Microsoft said, noting however how the initial choice had shown the Defense Department’s confidence in its technology.
The cancellation of the maxi-contract does not definitively end the clash between the two Big Tech giants. The Pentagon has in fact announced that it intends to proceed with a “more sellers” project and intends to solicit proposals from a “limited number of sources”, or from “Microsoft and Amazon Web Services”, the only two companies able to meet the necessary requirements. , and therefore could divide the contract.
Other companies – such as Google, Oracle and IBM – could also be considered if they show they have what it takes. Among the requirements to be respected is that of being able to work on three levels of information, namely those not classified, those secret and those top secret. But also a global availability of services and high cybersecurity controls. The new contract is expected to run for five years but its value is yet to be determined.
.