The Department of Defense (DoD) canceled the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) Cloud solicitation and initiated the contract awarded to Microsoft over Amazon under the Trump administration.
The canceled $10 billion JEDI cloud contract awarded to Microsoft was the subject of a legal battle involving Amazon and Microsoft.
In a press release Tuesday, DoD said that “due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs.”
“JEDI was developed at a time when the Department’s needs were different and both the CSPs technology and our cloud conversancy was less mature. In light of new initiatives like JADC2 and AI and Data Acceleration (ADA), the evolution of the cloud ecosystem within DoD, and changes in user requirements to leverage multiple cloud environments to execute mission, our landscape has advanced and a new way-ahead is warranted to achieve dominance in both traditional and non-traditional warfighting domains,” John Sherman, acting DoD Chief Information Officer, said in a statement.
Concurrent with the cancellation of the JEDI Request for Proposals (RFP), the DoD announced its intent for new cloud efforts.
The Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) will be a multi-cloud/multi-vendor Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract.
In a press statement, DoD said that the Department intends to seek proposals from a limited number of sources, namely the Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), as available market research indicates that these two vendors are the only Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) capable of meeting the Department’s requirements.
Microsoft was awarded the cloud computing contract in 2019, beating out market leader Amazon Web Services.
A month later, Amazon’s cloud computing unit, AWS, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims protesting the JEDI decision.
Amazon said in 2019 the Pentagon decision was full of “egregious errors,” which it suggested were a result of “improper pressure from Trump,” Reuters wrote.
The company cited a 2019 book that reported Trump had directed the Defense Department to “screw Amazon” out of the JEDI contract.
Later on, the Defense Department re-evaluated the contract proposals and said Microsoft’s submission was the best.
Microsoft said in a blog post-Tuesday it understands the DoD’s rationale, and the company supports them and every military member who needs the mission-critical 21st-century technology JEDI would have provided.
“The 20 months since DoD selected Microsoft as its JEDI partner highlights issues that warrant the attention of policymakers: when one company can delay, for years, critical technology upgrades for those who defend our nation, the protest process needs reform,” Toni Townes-Whitley – President, U.S. Regulated Industries at Microsoft wrote.
Microsoft shares declined during Tuesday’s session, falling from a gain on the day before the announcement to a loss of about 0.5%. Amazon shares were trading more than 4% higher and hit an all-time intraday high of $3,672.
(With Inputs from DoD and agencies)
A global media for the latest news, entertainment, music fashion, and more.
