Microsoft snagged a gigantic Pentagon cloud contract estimated to be worth up to $10 billion over 10 years, beating out market leader Amazon Web Services, multiple news outlets reported Friday.
IBM and Oracle were among the companies that also sought the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract but got ruled out, CNBC reported.
The victory highlights the emergence of Microsoft’s Azure cloud as a challenger to Amazon Web Services, CNBC reported.
Yet it was considered a surprise, the New York Times reported.
Amazon was considered the front-runner until President Donald Trump began his criticisms of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and, for the past several years, the owner of The Washington Post — a news organization the president refers to as the “Amazon Washington Post,” the Times reported.
According to the Verge, the contract award will be seen as a big win for Microsoft — even as its employees may not agree.
Thousands of Google employees protested against the tech giant’s involvement in the Pentagon’s “pathfinder” artificial intelligence program, known as Project Maven. Google was forced to step back from the work and wasn’t part of the final bidding, th Verge noted.
Microsoft employees have also called on the company to drop its HoloLens Army contract that could eventually provide more than 100,000 of augmented reality headsets for military combat and training.
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