Microsoft Beats Amazon To Win the Pentagon's $10 Billion JEDI Cloud Contract (theverge.com) 51
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The U.S. government has awarded a giant $10 billion cloud contract to Microsoft, the Department of Defense has confirmed. Known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), the contract will provide the Pentagon with cloud services for basic storage and power all the way up to artificial intelligence processing, machine learning, and the ability to process mission-critical workloads. It's a key contract for Microsoft as the company battles Amazon for cloud dominance, and for a while it was up in the air as to whether Microsoft or Amazon would win this particular one. IBM and Oracle were both eliminated for the bidding back in April, leaving just Microsoft and Amazon as the only companies that could meet the requirements. The contract has been controversial throughout the bidding process, and Oracle lost a legal challenge after it claimed the contract has conflicts of interest. The contract will last for 10 years and is likely to be resisted by employees, who have in the past have called on the company to drop its HoloLens U.S. Army contract and stop its work with ICE.
Probably for the best... (Score:1)
Both are ethically questionable, but MS seems ever so slightly less slimy. But Iâ(TM)m not sure why.
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MS is in decline. Amazon is ascendant. Plus it's better the devil that you know than the devil that you don't.
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MS is in decline. Amazon is ascendant.
Sure, it's fun to say this on an Internet message board, but it's hard to see that decline out in the real world -- Microsoft stock is at an all-time high, as is revenue. Even Windows -- you know, that ole' thing that everyone is positive has been dying in favour of macOS and Linux? -- just saw revenue go up 10% compared to a year ago.
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Sure, it's fun to say this on an Internet message board, but it's hard to see that decline out in the real world -- Microsoft stock is at an all-time high, as is revenue. Even Windows -- you know, that ole' thing that everyone is positive has been dying in favour of macOS and Linux? -- just saw revenue go up 10% compared to a year ago.
You've been here longer than me, that Microsoft is dying has been a running theme for the last 20 years and we've never let facts get in the way before, why start now? Truth is that until Apple or Google makes a big move Microsoft is sitting very comfortably. Chromebooks are nice but not earth shattering and I guess everyone is waiting for Apple to launch an ARM line of Macs but so far they seem 95% focused on the phone/tablet market and the rest is just holding steady.
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You seem to think an Apple ARM machine will magically run MS crapware. It won't, there will be no mass migration from MS because its customers actually like where they are and see no reason to change.
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I’ll go this far: I would buy Microsoft stock on a 3-5% drop without thinking twice about it. This is the first time in over 20 years of being on /. and investing in stocks that the idea doesn’t make me cringe... and I own Apple and Amazon stock. I think Microsoft (and Amazon) should really spin off some operations to help the components have clearer identity, but even barring that, the fact that my employees want to switch from google to Office 365 email tells me a lot.
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Heh... no, it has all been researched pretty well. Microsoft has dealt with a number of the integration issues that Windows/iPhone environments have... of course by screwing up Google’s implementation somewhat and “fixing” the problem. Our issue is contact/calendar integration, and most of the other solutions out there just over-complicate the matter.
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MS is in decline. Amazon is ascendant.
MS has made a comeback post-Ballmer and has, the last time I bothered to look at the irrelevant stats, a larger market cap than Amazon. Amazon, of course, has the advantage of selling real things and being still led by its founder, but also has the burden of having more employees. So who knows who will emerge on top by the end of the decade?
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So who knows who will emerge on top by the end of the decade?
Considering the end of the decade is 2 months away, and MSFT's P/E Ratio is nowhere as high as AMZN's... and MSFT is a $1T company... it's 100% most likely that Microsoft emerges on top come January.
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Theres absolutely no evidence at all MS is on the decline. Sure windows has kind of gotten boring and the days of the MS monopoly on the business desktop are long gone , and theres very little MS presence in the world of generic internet servers, *but* they've been going gangbusters in the cloud business, they've managed to scrape a place for themselves in hardware with the surface stuff that continues to be a pleasing alternative to the Apple stuff for people who really need windows, XBox is doing fine, a
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Surface hardware is also popular with Linux people who are jealous of the Apple hardware.
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A perfect fit with the US mil.
Re: Probably for the best... (Score:3, Insightful)
MS also makes notoriously low quality software, and had largely replaced their American workforce with foreign-born employees. It's easy to imagine conflict situations wherein Microsoft leadership would intentionally sell out the United States.
Looks like the real winners of this contact are America's military adversaries.
Re:Probably for the best... (Score:4, Funny)
Probably not for the best. This appears to be another Trump order to screw with functioning departments. He simply didn't want Amazon and Bezos to get the contract. So that asshole picks the company who wouldn't know security if it danced naked in front of it.
Government contracts is another business (Score:3)
Microsoft is in the gaming-console business, the office software business, the government services business (federal contract business), and the cloud business. Each business employs thousands of people.
Smaller cloud providers could provide the underlying cloud offering, but they'd need Lcokheed or HP to handle the federal contracting. Dealing with the government is a business itself. Microsoft has both cloud and government services companies in-house.
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No kickbacks are necessary here. la Presidenta Tweetie got what he ordered, Bezos and Amazon screwed. I note that Esper(ante) had "recused" himself last week because his son has a relationship with IBM. Nice red herring since IBM wasn't in the running. More likely, he recused himself because he know capitulating to Putin's Poodle is against the law when it comes to government contracts....but then Putin's Poodle doesn't care about laws.
BSOD Betting Pool Time (Score:1, Troll)
OK people, time for thje big betting pool, how long before M$ manages to take down the US Department of Defence with a massive Blue Screen of Death, hours, days, and weeks. You know what M$ will do, blame the Russians for the incompetence of M$. Do you what the cheapest tender provides, lots and lots of cost overuns and an entirely shite systems. I'd bet the Chinese have it cracked before it is even completed, because LOWEST TENDER more often than not delivers the worst results.
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You know most of the VMs on MSFT Azure are Linux right?
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You know most of the VMs on MSFT Azure are Linux right?
Yeah, but the host OS on each compute node is still an early release candidate version of Windows ME.
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la Presidenta Tweetie: (dials phone) Hello? Vladimir?
Vlad the Impaler: Da, this is he, what you want?
lPT: It's your favorite poodle!!
VtI: Donnie!!! How you do? You have good news, da?
IPT: Yup, I just screwed Bezos and Amazon.
VtI: ????? Errmm...that's wonderful Donnie, I guess....
lPT: Well, I just threw the Pentagon Jedi contract to Microsoft.
VtL: Really? Wow! That's the best news I've heard since Erdogan capitulated to me.
lPT: Huh? Why?
VtL: Well Donnie Boy, let's just say my favorite poodle had single total
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If all it does is take down DoD resources then it's par for the course really...
What's with the sci-fi references? (Score:1)
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Also helps to have the project name as some PR "fun". Rather than what a computer suggested as the next random politically correct project "word".
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Embrace and Extend (Score:2)
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Soon? I thought the Pentagon runs on PowerPoints.
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Re: Washington Post (Score:2)
+1, I was going to post the same idea, sorry I have no mod points
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It's unclear what impact President Donald Trump's criticism of Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos had on the final contract decision. Trump allegedly told former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that he wanted to "screw" Amazon by denying them the contract, according to a book by former Mattis aide Guy Snodgrass that is set to be released next week.
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It's unclear what impact President Donald Trump's criticism of Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos had on the final contract decision. Trump allegedly told former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that he wanted to "screw" Amazon by denying them the contract, according to a book by former Mattis aide Guy Snodgrass that is set to be released next week.
Seriously ... upvote this ^ ^ ^
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Sole-source contracts and terms (Score:1)
First, this was issued as a winner-take-all ("sole-source") contract. That eliminated competitors who could share the resources, the burden, the logistics, and the support. It left only MS and Amazon.
Second, one /. poster said "Make there there is a clause limiting ..." There are no such clauses because /. posters didn't (note the past tense) write this RFP. It was strange to begin with (sole-source multi-year $10B) and the winning vendor can charge whatever they bid. Having submitted proposals to var
Re:Sole-source contracts and terms (Score:4, Informative)
That's not what sole source means. A sole source contract is one where the contract is not competed (opened for multiple bids) because there is only on provider who can meet the requirements.
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That's not what sole source means. A sole source contract is one where the contract is not competed (opened for multiple bids) because there is only on provider who can meet the requirements.
It seems like the primary requirement of this contract was Trump demanding not to do business with Jeff Bezos.
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Well, the US military is doomed (Score:1)
Microsoft or Amazon? I suppose it could have been Oracle or Google.
None of them as trustworthy as Trump.