Although the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) refused to backtrack on its Oct. 2019 decision awarding Microsoft a $10bn JEDI cloud contract after a reevaluation, Amazon Web Services (AWS) says it will continue to legally challenge the deal. AWS also said the award sets a "dangerous precedent" and was "politically corrupted."
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- In a blog post, AWS notes how this time the company also offered a lower cost than Microsoft “by several tens of millions of dollars”. “The DoD’s decision to intentionally ignore the clear cost benefits offered by AWS, reinforces the fact that this corrective action was never meant to be fair,” the company said.
- AWS additionally reiterated it believes it lost the deal because of interference by President Donald Trump and “numerous material evaluation errors." The company adds it's worried about a “growing trend where defense officials act based on a desire to please the President, rather than do what’s right."
- The DoD denies such claims. In April, the DoD inspector general said that evidence indicates its personnel was "not pressured regarding their decision on the award of the contract by any DoD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House.”
