In October, Microsoft won the $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project with the Pentagon after outdoing other rivals pitching for it. The JEDI project would see the modernization of critical military computer infrastructure via the winning company’s cloud services.
In the case of Microsoft winning the JEDI contract, those cloud services would be born from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing division. The problem is, Amazon was long favored to win the project, and thus see the Pentagon use its AWS solutions. Yet at the final hour, the Pentagon announced Microsoft had nabbed JEDI.
The decision never sat well with Amazon, and in November, the company announced it would fight the decision, saying “Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias—and it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”
That fight has led to Amazon today announcing that they have asked a court to force a stay of work on Microsoft’s JEDI contract until the court can rule on Amazon’s protest over the Pentagon awarding JEDI to Microsoft. In a statement shared with Fast Company, an AWS spokesperson said:
It is common practice to stay contract performance while a protest is pending and it’s important that the numerous evaluation errors and blatant political interference that impacted the JEDI award decision be reviewed. AWS is absolutely committed to supporting the DoD’s modernization efforts and to an expeditious legal process that resolves this matter as quickly as possible.
How quickly the matter will be resolved remains to be seen. All that’s guaranteed is the fight for JEDI is anything but over. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment on Amazon’s court request and will update this post when we hear back.
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