Microsoft Plans Cloud Contract Push With Foreign Governments After $10 Million JEDI Win (cnbc.com) 29
Microsoft is signing deals with foreign governments to offer cloud-infrastructure packages similar to the bundle it assembled for the U.S. Defense Department, according to CNBC, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud offering for the Defense Department provides cloud-based computing and storage resources at all government security classification levels, as well as devices that can work offline until they sync back with cloud infrastructure. The Pentagon awarded the JEDI contract to Microsoft in October. The contract is worth up to $10 billion over 10 years. Outside the U.S., Microsoft has seen interest in the type of relationship that it has formed with the Pentagon, said one of the people. Specifically, Microsoft has committed to staffing the Pentagon initiative with people who hold sufficient government security clearances, and to delivering a group of existing products and services, as opposed to specially built technologies, at a customized price.
Microsoft employees began work on cloud contracts for foreign governments after it became clear that the JEDI work would be put on hold because of a legal challenge from Amazon, Microsoft's main rival in cloud computing, this person said. The company plans to announce the effort later this year, one person said, adding that intelligence agencies and militaries outside the U.S. might use it. Another person briefed on the work said Microsoft already has foreign cloud government contracts, despite that it has not announced the new strategy yet. It's not clear which countries Microsoft is most focused on. "We've worked with governments around the world on a longstanding and reliable basis for four decades," a spokesperson told CNBC in an email. "We have government customers using our products to enhance their services with the latest in commercial innovations, deeply engage and connect with citizens in powerful ways, and empower government employees with the modern tools they need to be more efficient and effective, and to give them time back to focus on their agency mission."
Microsoft employees began work on cloud contracts for foreign governments after it became clear that the JEDI work would be put on hold because of a legal challenge from Amazon, Microsoft's main rival in cloud computing, this person said. The company plans to announce the effort later this year, one person said, adding that intelligence agencies and militaries outside the U.S. might use it. Another person briefed on the work said Microsoft already has foreign cloud government contracts, despite that it has not announced the new strategy yet. It's not clear which countries Microsoft is most focused on. "We've worked with governments around the world on a longstanding and reliable basis for four decades," a spokesperson told CNBC in an email. "We have government customers using our products to enhance their services with the latest in commercial innovations, deeply engage and connect with citizens in powerful ways, and empower government employees with the modern tools they need to be more efficient and effective, and to give them time back to focus on their agency mission."
Millions with a 'B' (Score:5, Informative)
That is all.
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$10M is probably how much it costs to keep 20 engineers on staff at Microsoft for one year.
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This has been Microsoft's standard tactics since always, to buy a position at any cost and later use that position to extract money from customers who are now tied in and can't escape. The corporate IT world caught on and moved most of everything to Linux. Sadly government job-for-life bureaucrats and the parasitic consulting companies they rely on (I mean Accenture) care only for their position and their income, not the health of the governments they are working for.
Microsoft has one redeeming feature thou
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Most likely with the DoD contract it came down to DoD wants one neck to strangle when things go tits up. The other thing MS had going for them is Office, DoD runs on Office. It centralizes their software so adversaries only need one good crack to open the entire can (of worms). I recall a brief David Patraeus had before he was caught doodling one of the service women. He's seated and going through slides, on CSPAN. He gets to one gonzowhopper of a slide. Arrows!!! My god the arrows, arrows here, there, some
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It's funny because whoever wrote the headline didn't think
Not so funny when you see BeauHD in the byline.
Hardly. (Score:2)
Very few foreign governments will willingly put all their information in a free-access mode for the US secret services. Maybe a few US-dependent dictatorship shitholes, but that'll be all.
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Is that how they got the contract? (Score:1)
Did they promise the Pentagon a bonus backdoor that Amazon wouldn't?
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Indubitably, which is why the US government is pushing. Any government that install M$ defence package should be tried for treason, straight up, the second they sign the contract. The only sane way to do it is in house. Corporations could pay for an attack report to trigger a highly profitable responses. M$ will be doing it as cheaply as possible, taking more and more shortcuts and hiring cheaper people, to increase profits, till it all blows up in the US governments face. How much more proof of how destruc
Indubitably (Score:2)
Indubitably
Undoubtedly you should be modded up simply for use of this word.
Ngram shows "Indubitably" usage peaked around 1930 and again around 1944, I would have thought there would be higher usage after 1947 due to the popular "Goofy Gopher" animated characters but usage fell off until a few years ago. For some reason it has made a comeback.
https://books.google.com/ngram... [google.com]
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Typo in the title: s/million/billion/ (Score:2)
The subject says it all...
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You have clearly never used Azure. If you had you would have a [MB]illon more reasons to hate it. It's literally hideous compared to AWS in every aspect.
Random destruction of disk images is what give me the biggest WTF moment.
We all know (Score:2)
That Jedi was destined for AWS.
Don't kid yourselves. There is a scent of foul play in the air.
do something about it.
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I like how "foul play" here is used to refer to "it didn't end up in the hands of the corporation who hired bureaucrats who used to work in this specific field for the government".
Black is indeed white in the current year.
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Yeah, it had nothing to do with unfavorable coverage in a certain newspaper about a certain President.
Sure, and TikTok is the biggest risk out of China and not at all related to a prank on a rally.
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I like how "foul play" here is used to refer to "it didn't end up in the hands of the corporation who hired bureaucrats who used to work in this specific field for the government".
Black is indeed white in the current year.
Yeah in what world would the most capable candidate be suitable for a government contract. Pull your head out of trumps ass. Let's give it to Radio Shack , they don't have any lobbyist anymore ... do they?
Dr. Evil (Score:4, Funny)
Did Dr. Evil write the summary?
- We will use our drone in the government to get the defence department assign us a project worth... TEN MILLION DOLLARS!!
- Sir, are you sure that is enough money? I mean Microsoft already rakes in billions every year.
- Really? That is a lot of money...
Reserved Word? (Score:1)
Actions of Foreign Governments (Score:2)
2. Get as many security researchers as possible to find vulnerabilities in the cloud services
3. Create exploits and test them against your own cloud instances
4. Point those exploits at the U.S. military instances