Thread: Microsoft pips Amazon for $10bn AI 'Jedi' contract

The Pentagon has awarded a $10bn (£8bn) cloud-computing contract to Microsoft, following a heavily scrutinised bidding process in which Amazon had been seen as the favourite.



The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defence Infrastructure, or Jedi, is aimed at making the US defence department more technologically agile.

Amazon's bid drew criticism from its rivals and US President Donald Trump.

The company said it was "surprised" by the decision.

A "detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings" would "clearly lead to a different conclusion", it said.

In its statement, the Pentagon said all offers "were treated fairly".
What is Jedi?

The Department of Defense wants to replace its ageing computer networks with a single cloud system.

Under the contract, Microsoft will provide artificial intelligence-based analysis and host classified military secrets among other services.

Pentagon pushes pause on $10bn AI tech deal
Google drops $10bn battle for Pentagon data

It is hoped that Jedi will give the military better access to data and the cloud from battlefields.
Is the decision controversial?

Amazon had been considered the front-runner - until President Trump began questioning whether the process was fair.

In July he told reporters that he was getting "tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and Amazon".
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption Microsoft had not been considered the front-runner

He said other companies had told him that the contract "wasn't competitively bid" and that his administration would "take a very long look" at the process.

Mr Trump has repeatedly criticised Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos - who also owns the Washington Post newspaper - in the past.

Dan Ives, managing director and equity analyst Wedbush Securities, said he expected Amazon and others to challenge the decision in the courts, but called it a "paradigm changer" for Microsoft.

The move was likely to boost Microsoft's share price and bring "significant positive financial implications" for the company in the coming years, he said.
A blow for Amazon

By Leo Kelion, BBC Technology desk editor

Amazon will be bitterly disappointed to have lost this contract, having long considered its bid to be the stronger.

But after President Trump's comments about "receiving tremendous complaints" about Amazon's frontrunner status in July, and then the delay to announcing the award the following month, it had always looked liked Microsoft could pull off an upset.

The timing is curious, however, coming just days after Defence Secretary Mark Esper unexpectedly removed himself from the review process after months of involvement, on the grounds that one of his sons worked for IBM - one of the other original applicants.

It means Microsoft is now set to be a huge recipient of Department of Defense funds.

Not only will it benefit from Jedi, but also a separate multi-billion dollar contract known as Deos. This has run into delays of its own, but is still set to result in the DoD using cloud-based Office 365 for its email, calendar, video-calling and other productivity software needs.

One issue for Microsoft is whether its closeness to the military will cause it problems.

Some of its own workers have already objected to it developing a version of its Hololens augmented reality headset for the US military, and the idea of it now providing machine learning tools and other systems to help "enhance force lethality" could prove to be a PR nightmare.

For Amazon, if the loss of such a lucrative contract is linked to Jeff Bezos's ownership of the Washington Post, it could fuel calls for AWS to be spun off from its parent and established as a separate company. There had already been speculation this might happen in order to head off regulators' concerns that Amazon already extends too deeply into Americans' lives.
How did we get here?

The announcement marked the end of a long process that had pitted tech giants Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against each other.

As the world's biggest provider of cloud-computing services, Amazon had been the favourite to win Jedi. But its competitors argued that the process was unfair.
Image copyright AFP
Image caption Mr Trump has repeatedly criticised Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos

Oracle challenged the bidding process in federal court earlier this year, saying that it was rigged to favour Amazon, but a federal judge dismissed the allegation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50191242

MS paid the biggest bribes, so they got the contract

Pentagon deserves this, MS is run and operated by a bunch of dodgy indians, so perfectly appropriate for the Pentagon

Fuck knows why Oracle thought they ever deserved it, they have next to no experience in cloud security.

But to give it to Amazon over Microsoft?

You have to assume baldy orange cunto's carping over Amazon had something to do with it.

Amazon already have cloud servers in Langley basements.

Amazon having their new HQ in Crystal City is no coincidence, they are one stone away from the Pentagon building

interesting that they lost, I am sure on specs they had the upper hand over MS

Originally Posted by Dragonfly

interesting that they lost, I am sure on specs they had the upper hand over MS

Oddly enough, I agree. From what I had heard from people I know that still do the stuff, they were under the impression Amazon would get the contract.

Having said that, a contract award that big was reviewed from stem to stern to make sure it was legit.

a lot of kickbacks, MS and IBM are famous for bribing CTOs to get contracts

bet they were hiring government employees in that deal, while Amazon refused the kickbacks

Oracle shouldn't be in this cloud business, their crap Database business is already coming to an end

I live a stone throw across lake union where Amazon is based. You fucks are clueless with the speculation
.

They are both certified up to impact level 6, so it is possible that it just came down to numbers.

Even if you use AWS to host MS products, you still need to pay for Microsoft licences.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

MS are a useless company. They produce poor consumer level products

Their corporate level goods get the job done, everyone knows how to use them and their corporate support is top notch.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

MS are a useless company. They produce poor consumer level products and should be allowed nowhere near any government contracts - however, the MS contract via the government probably employs the government s/w folks as consultants to put in place the work they've already done before the bidding process started... I'm sure there will be much monies earned by the folks involved.

You shouldn't really pretend to understand information technology when you are a mactard. Next thing you'll be telling us how to create a spreadsheet with regedit and then hunting skanky ladyboys down dark alleys.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

You shouldn't really pretend to understand information technology when you are a mactard. Next thing you'll be telling us how to create a spreadsheet with regedit and then hunting skanky ladyboys down dark alleys.

Back in my business days... In InteractiveTV, you had to run s/w on the STBs, and Microsoft tried to get into the business - we worked with all the s/w companies, had full systems inhouse from transmission head-ends to STB farms with every manufacturers STB version ever released on the UK cable, satellite or FTA market; obviously lots of top-notch technical folks. Microsoft were not good, their s/w engineers, code, work practices, the list goes on, were shocking. They effectively bought a major network in Portugal to get into the market (nobody would buy their product) and they still couldn't make it work... Terrible company in that space. Terrible with consumer products. It's possible that they are better in other areas of their business...

Having said that, they did splash the cash, and one of the best parties I ever went to was in Amsterdam hosted by Microsoft TV - in an old church, had a circus troop in, top tier singers and A-list stars flown across to mingle with the crowd, sing, etc.

Billy Zane (back in the day when he had a short period as an A-list star...), was trying to chat me g/f up everytime I turned my back... A Romanian Miss World contestant, very sexy, tall, looked stunning, but in retrospect he could have had her... She had a terrible personality and made me mostly miserable for the 2 years we were together. Having said that, she had an amazing body, and back at the hotel that night I remember using it rather well...

Thank you Microsoft.

^ Wow, you have once been successful! Thanks for bragging.
So what happened, where did it all get wrong for you?

Originally Posted by Plan B

Their corporate level goods get the job done, everyone knows how to use them and their corporate support is top notch.

obviously experienced by someone who never had to deal with their useless corporate support

I guess by corporate support you must mean their corporate licensing sales business

Originally Posted by bsnub

I live a stone throw across lake union where Amazon is based. You fucks are clueless with the speculation
.

yes bsnob, we know you work in Amazon main warehouse as a logistic shelf operator, no need to remind us

Originally Posted by Plan B

Buttfluffer, your experience with MS support is limited to asking the helpdesk how to regedit your wifi on.
The second time you called you asked them hack Slacktard for you.

Your experiences are limited to been told to fork off by Indians getting paid more than you. And that explains a few things.

their corporate support is shit, and that alone tells me what kind of IT retard you are, probably at the level of Harry

I have dealt many times with MS for corporate support, in several instances to fix a very hard issue with one of their software, we got charged a fortune and never got an answer or hotfix, and that was for a Fortune 500 company

their support is superficial and frigging lame,

of course if you have a problem calculating a cell in Excel, I am sure their corporate support can help you

Originally Posted by lom

^ Wow, you have once been successful! Thanks for bragging.
So what happened, where did it all get wrong for you?

Thanks Lom - it's my pleasure, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to expand...

Everything was going nicely, large salary, got head-hunted and offered a couple of CEO positions, so I decided to take a couple of weeks to reflect, seems as taking over the European CEO of a US InteractiveTV company would have been a big responsibility that I would have had to put 5 very hard years in, wholeheartedly, and after the reflection, I realized that I was bored of the business element of the traveling, repulsed by the greed culture and much prefered the traveling and seeing other cultures stuff. So, I moved to Outer Mongolia...

Upon another 20 years of reflection of that decision, to offer you my wisdom: some good and some bad... If I had continued on as CEO then I'd likely have a lot more money now, but I'd also likely live to that level, so be no better off in many ways. I have seen and experienced quite a lot in the last 20 years, so that's been good. I'd suggest to folks under 40 who are thinking about moving around like I did: build some money in the bank for another 5 years or more, buy a flat in London, rent it out and forget about it; put that in the bank so to speak... Do the traveling later.

Of course you might be blown up or stabbed by MI6 pretending to be Muslim terrorists in London, so maybe just get outta there...

Back on topic, but parallel, Lom: move away from MS products a.s.a.p. because they are shite. In business, like anything you pay more for, you can likely get good full support from MS as Plan B suggested, but generally speaking MS are utter shite, and the Pentagon will rue the day they gave this contract to them...

Originally Posted by Plan B

Buttfluffer, your experience with MS support is limited to asking the helpdesk how to regedit your wifi on.
The second time you called you asked them hack Slacktard for you.

Your experiences are limited to been told to fork off by Indians getting paid more than you. And that explains a few things.

I'll guarantee my Indians get paid more than him.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Thanks Lom - it's my pleasure, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to expand...

Everything was going nicely, large salary, got head-hunted and offered a couple of CEO positions, so I decided to take a couple of weeks to reflect, seems as taking over the European CEO of a US InteractiveTV company would have been a big responsibility that I would have had to put 5 very hard years in, wholeheartedly, and after the reflection, I realized that I was bored of the business element of the traveling, repulsed by the greed culture and much prefered the traveling and seeing other cultures stuff. So, I moved to Outer Mongolia...

Upon another 20 years of reflection of that decision, to offer you my wisdom: some good and some bad... If I had continued on as CEO then I'd likely have a lot more money now, but I'd also likely live to that level, so be no better off in many ways. I have seen and experienced quite a lot in the last 20 years, so that's been good. I'd suggest to folks under 40 who are thinking about moving around like I did: build some money in the bank for another 5 years or more, buy a flat in London, rent it out and forget about it; put that in the bank so to speak... Do the traveling later.

Of course you might be blown up or stabbed by MI6 pretending to be Muslim terrorists in London, so maybe just get outta there...

Back on topic, but parallel, Lom: move away from MS products a.s.a.p. because they are shite. In business, like anything you pay more for, you can likely get good full support from MS as Plan B suggested, but generally speaking MS are utter shite, and the Pentagon will rue the day they gave this contract to them...

Fancy getting brainwashed by the Mac brigade, you sad git.

They're about as useful in the enterprise as a foreskin in a jewish nudist camp.