Why was Amazon heading to court to challenge the US Department of Defense's decision to award its $10bn winner-takes-all JEDI IT project to Microsoft rather than to, well, AWS?
“We’re in the middle of an act of litigation so there’s a limited amount I can say about it, but … we feel pretty strongly that it was not adjudicated fairly,” said Jassy. “If you do a truly objective and detailed apples to apples comparison of the platforms you don’t end up in the spot where that decision was made.
“Most of our customers tell us that we’re a couple of years ahead both with regard to functionality and maturity. I think we ended up with a situation where there was significant political interference.” Jassy claimed that having “a sitting president who’s willing to share openly his disdain for a company,” namely the Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon, makes it “really difficult for government agencies including the DoD to make an objective decision without fear of reprisal.”
Bezos also owns The Washington Post, which has drawn Trump's ire in the past, as well as Amazon.
Does Jassy have a point or is this just sour grapes?
Related Stories
Amazon wins court injunction on controversial JEDI contract:
[...] Amazon late last year filed suit against the Trump administration over the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud-computing contract. Amazon last month asked the court to grant a temporary injunction halting any JEDI work while the case is pending, and today Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith agreed. Although the existence of the injunction is public, documents relating to the matter are presently sealed.
The JEDI contract is a $10 billion agreement to build a cloud computing and storage platform for use by the entire Department of Defense. Several firms were in the running for the deal, including Oracle and IBM. in April, the DoD dropped the list of finalist candidates to two: Amazon's AWS and Microsoft's Azure. AWS was widely expected to seal the deal, and so industry-watchers were surprised when in October Microsoft nabbed the contract instead.
Amazon filed suit a month later. The company argued that it didn't just lose the contract for ordinary reasons of cost or capability but was instead sabotaged for political reasons. Microsoft's win flowed from "improper pressure from President Donald J. Trump, who launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks to steer the JEDI Contract away from AWS to harm his perceived political enemy—Jeffrey P. Bezos," the lawsuit argued. (Bezos is the founder of Amazon and CEO as well as owner of The Washington Post.)
Previously:
- Pentagon's $10BN Jedi Decision 'Risky for the Country and Democracy,' Says AWS CEO Jassy
- Pentagon Beams Down $10bn JEDI Contract to Microsoft: Windows Giant Beats Off Bezos
- Amazon, Microsoft Wage War Over the Pentagon's "War Cloud"
Sorry, Amazon, Microsoft wins JEDI contract again upon re-evaluation:
After a monthslong[sic] investigation by the Pentagon, the Department of Defense said Friday that it's sticking with Microsoft for its $10 billion cloud computing contract. And Amazon is not happy.
As a quick refresher: Microsoft was originally awarded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract in October 2019 after facing off against other tech giants like IBM, Oracle, and Amazon in a fierce, yearslong[sic] bidding process. The contract would provide cloud computing services to the U.S. Army and is valued at as much as $10 billion for services rendered over a decade.
[...] The agency went on to say that this decision does not mean work will begin immediately since February's temporary injunction still stands, but it is "eager to begin" working with Microsoft to modernize the Pentagon's IT infrastructure.
In response, Amazon's cloud-computing arm, Amazon Web Services, tore into the DoD and Trump in a scathing post to its public sector blog, calling the government's investigation "nothing more than an attempt to validate a flawed, biased, and politically corrupted decision."
[...] You can read the statement in full here. TLDR: Amazon is royally pissed and the government can pry this contract from its cold, dead hands.
[...] In short, it appears the JEDI saga still isn't over so grab some popcorn and settle in, folks. This one's shaping up to be a doozy.
Pentagon cancels $10 billion JEDI cloud contract that Amazon and Microsoft were fighting over
The Department of Defense announced Tuesday it's calling off the $10 billion cloud contract that was the subject of a legal battle involving Amazon and Microsoft. But it's also announcing a new contract and soliciting proposals from both cloud service providers where both will likely clinch a reward.
The JEDI, or Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, deal has become one of the most tangled contracts for the DOD. In a press release Tuesday, the Pentagon said that "due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs."
[...] The agency said it plans to solicit proposals from both Amazon and Microsoft for the contract, adding that they are the only cloud service providers that can meet its needs. But, it added, it will continue to do market research to see if others could also meet its specifications.
Also at c|net, SecurityWeek, Al Jazera, and The Washington Post.
Previously: Amazon, Microsoft Wage War Over the Pentagon's "War Cloud"
Pentagon Beams Down $10bn JEDI Contract to Microsoft: Windows Giant Beats Off Bezos
Pentagon's $10BN Jedi Decision 'Risky for the Country and Democracy,' Says AWS CEO Jassy
Amazon Wins Court Injunction on Controversial JEDI Contract
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @11:26PM (4 children)
When you buy from Amazon you get a no-questions asked moneyback guarantee. When you buy from Microsoft, you get forced updates. Do we really want our soldiers relying on a system that could stop in the middle of a battle for an update?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:53AM
But... Amazon has the cheapest servers custom made for the task from China. It cuts out the MITM that M$ offers
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:14AM (2 children)
I hate to tell you this but we already have that. Take out Redmond and you will instantly bring DoD communications to its knees. Now, I'm sure that many of you will be filled with pure joy at the thought of nuking Redmond from orbit. But...if and when that happens there are going to be a lot of our soldiers on the front lines of battle who will suddenly find themselves without critical communications infrastructure. I fear that it's going to take some sort of Pearl Harbor type scenario before we get key people in Congress and the Pentagon to wake up to the hazard this poses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:46AM (1 child)
This is second-hand information, so it's OK to doubt it, but:
It's not just Microsoft. All sorts of tech contracts are being let that require that the soldiers who need the stuff working *NOW* aren't allowed to fix it when it breaks, and also don't have a large supply of spares. Often the contract specifies that the stuff has to be sent back to the repair center, and they'll ship it back when they have it fixed.
Sometimes the stuff really can't be fixed on site, in which case it should have been rejected as unfit for purpose. Sometimes it's just a legal requirement. In which case it should have been rejected as unfit for purpose.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday December 11 2019, @09:33PM
Yeah, that's pretty much the way it has always been.
It depends upon what the malfunction is as to at what level/where the repairs can or must be carried out at, ranging from Field-level to Depot. Depot is the highest level, and means it's sent to the repair depot responsible to be forwarded to manufacturer, rebuilt at depot, or lossed. For any piece of gear there is some maintenance manual which contains a table specifying what level a given repair is to be carried out at. For a lot of gear G.I. Joe or Johnny Dumbass isn't just risking his or her neck on his or her skill, but that of others as well, so they don't want Joe or Johnny trying to "fix" it. So there's a lot of repairs which are specified as depot level.
As to "don't have a large supply of spares," that is either the fault of the DoD testing apparatus or for procurement (read budget, read Congress/Executive) for not ensuring adequate supply in the face of breakage.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @11:37PM (3 children)
Rey Skywalker.
(Score: 2) by deimios on Wednesday December 11 2019, @06:14AM (2 children)
You mean Mary. Mary Sue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:18PM (1 child)
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @09:36PM
Will Mary meet Rey? Will Microsoft get the contract? Will AWS get the contract after all? These questions, and many others, will be answered on the next episode of Soap [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Funny) by Aegis on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:04AM (6 children)
I wonder if they have an actual legal strategy or if they're just hoping he randomly admits to it on TV.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Aegis on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:07AM (1 child)
But the real question is why the story headline makes a Star Wars pun but picture is of Star Trek!!!!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:19AM
Odo or do not: there is no Janeway.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Username on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:15AM (3 children)
Even if he does, I dont see the problem. Would you hire on someone who is known to hate you and is willing to do anything to obstruct you when there is another candidate available? Seems an absolutely reasonable decision.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:21AM (2 children)
Point of order: Bezos apparently doesn't much care for Trump. That is quite a big difference from not liking the US DoD. Or are you one of those cult-worshiping Trump supporters that think Trump and the government are one and the same?
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday December 12 2019, @01:31AM (1 child)
Trump is the commander and chief of the DoD. So, yes, I do think they currently are one and the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 12 2019, @04:03AM
No, they are not, dumbass! Those of us who work for DoD, both military and civilian, swear an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. We don't swear any oath to the guy in the oval office, no matter which party he belongs to. Next time, educate yourself before spewing such nonsense.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:27AM (13 children)
The whole thing is stupid shit.
Military data should be on military owned machines, under military control, with military patrolling the fences. All failures are blamed on the military, all successes are credited to the military. Of course, I have nothing but contempt for the whole cloud concept, but that contempt multiplies a thousand fold when we're talking about the military. We're simply doing it all wrong here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:33AM (8 children)
Hasn't worked that way in many decades.
The military wants to only employ people in their core competencies of killing people, breaking things, and patching up their injured folks.
Everything else is contracted out. It's a good thing, too, or else you'd be paying military retirement after only 20 of service to all those new soldier-programmers.
You think the defense budget is big NOW?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 11 2019, @12:48AM (3 children)
Better to pay soldier's pensions, than civil service pensions. Contractors? They take their pensions up front.
Have you ever really compared pension plans for the military, compared with the civilian world, including civil service?
Oh, a little secret about military retirees. A large percentage of retirees don't live to draw much pension. The numbers may have changed over the years, but they were large enough to cause concern when I decided to get out. Military have problems adjusting to civilian life, leading to various outcomes, including suicide. You might include suicide by cop among those numbers. And, homelessness.
Sorry, but I know enough about military and military retirees to not be terribly concerned about military pensions. It's a mere drop in the bucket, compared to ten billion dollars spent on compromising the military's data.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @05:28PM
All I can say is I am surrounded by former military drawing their pension and now also making big bucks in private industry, frequently at defense contractor companies.
Defense contracting companies seem almost designed around these double dippers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:25PM (1 child)
So you'd rather pay the pension for people who retire at age 40, and then live another 50 years? You're paying a pension for them that is 2.5 times longer than the amount of time they served. Civil servants you pay a pension for them when they retire at 67 (or whatever floating year it is), and them amount you pay is on prorated pay scales that you need to put in a lot more time to get the full benefit).
PLUS, now that they've switched everybody but Congress (heh, go figure), most Federal employees have 401k-based plans, not pensions like on the "old" system.
If they want to keep with the 20 year pension thing for military people, they absolutely need to go back to the old system they had, which was start paying their pension when they hit some retirement age, so they can still part at 40, but they don't get their pension until 65 (or whatever).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 12 2019, @12:19AM
You weren't paying attention. Retired military don't draw pensions for fifty years. Those who do are negligible in the grand scheme of things.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:16AM (3 children)
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
What is a factor for contractors that isn't a factor for either uniformed personnel or civil servants is profit margins and sheer graft. One way potential military contractors make more money is by dreaming up new pork projects that look good to a bunch of top brass - whether these new pork projects actually help win any battles is basically immaterial for the exercise. And for projects like that, there's frequently an understanding between the company that thought of the idea and the procurement officers they've decided are usefully pliable to reduce the odds of competitive bidding on the project. In short, it becomes a pipeline of money from government coffers to the shareholders of the favorite contracting companies.
The incredibly over-simplified math here: The defense contracting industry reported ~$80 billion in profits last year. That's money going from taxes into the pockets of shareholders. And it's enough to pay the salaries of approximately 1 million uniformed service members at current rates.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @05:23PM (2 children)
The contracts are budgeted by the govt who also writes up the requirements.
Tell me how eliminating contractors from the equation fixes this. Get rid of them, and you will still have bloated budgets and crazy requirements.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:26PM (1 child)
3 things go away with the elimination of the contractors:
- An army of salespeople whose sole job is to butter up the government people and convince them to buy more stuff.
- A lot of shareholders who get nice dividends and/or capital gains increases on the taxpayer dime.
- A whole management structure whose job is to push their army of salespeople to sell more stuff.
Yes, government people agree to the terms of every contract. That doesn't mean they really wrote those contracts any more than Congresscritters actually writing the bills they propose.
I don't think it fixes everything, but I wouldn't be surprised if government bureaucratic bloat was less expensive than contractor bloat where a bunch of people are specifically incentivized to maximize said bloat.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @07:57PM
The way it works is the military wants "capability" (usually new, or advertised as new) in some area.
This year, it's cyber security. Then they decide how big a chunk they will push Congress to give them. Congress wants to bring home the bacon to their constituents, so they are all for spending if they have contractors or military bases in their home district.
In no way is this process primarily the result of private industry salesmanship.
The govt WANTS to spend money. Having a large budget is POWER in a bureaucracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:16AM
Hide in plan sight. Too many servers to sort thru to find the mil ones. Then you have to compromise them.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:04AM
Um that should be the case, just because cloud vendors are building it using their cloud stack, doesn't mean it is the same public cloud hosted solution that is shared tenancy with corporates and the consumers. Typically it is as you mentioned in military facilities, on their hardware with patrolling fences.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:24AM (1 child)
Yes, you'd think they would have learned: they're back teaching sailors how to steer by the stars again because "shit happens".
Why invite more shit into your life? Keep it local so that the shit is localized rather than system wide.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:54AM
I think the thing is that when everything's working well, using remote services is a lot better.
The problems only show up when you're ... hmm. "under fire" doesn't work for the Navy or the Air Force. Both of them encounter problems without being under fire. Like a cruiser that needs to reboot in the middle of moving through a harbor. Not sure about the army, though. They don't fall out of the sky or have their guidance systems freeze. So perhaps for them it's only when actually under fire...or at least out in the field.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
Very recent performance comparison of VPS providers. Money quote, "I didn't think it was possible to get slower than Amazon Lightsail's disk IO, but Azure managed to somehow."
https://toys.lerdorf.com/low-cost-vps-testing [lerdorf.com]
.
MS has orders of magnitude worse uptime than the next worst uptime:
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3394341/when-it-comes-to-uptime-not-all-cloud-providers-are-created-equal.html [networkworld.com]
.
And, a personal anecdote. My work uses Google Apps for students, and MS o365 for staff and faculty. We've had no outages of Google Apps in over 10 years. We've had more than 10 outages of o365 in one year.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:48AM
GitLab migrated to Azure in exchange for free hosting and saw immediate, significant decreases in performance and reliability; after the free hosting deal expired they migrated to GCP and saw immediate, significant increases in performance and reliability.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday December 11 2019, @11:22AM
https://archive.is/5II5U [archive.is]
But because it keeps coming up I made these too:
https://archive.is/Nn3S5 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/yjsMB [archive.is]
https://archive.is/Eu1Z4 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/xXs6r [archive.is]
https://archive.ph/T95pm [archive.ph]
https://archive.ph/cVZBQ [archive.ph]
https://archive.is/l7KRl [archive.is]
https://archive.is/N15xT [archive.is]
https://archive.is/EoIML [archive.is]
https://archive.is/OPkTH [archive.is]
Make sure the entire u.s. military and police see these, not just the ones trying to ruin my life plz thx!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @01:40PM
well, if the m$ gets militarized, i suppose there's going to be stuff you won't be able to do anymore ... like maybe trying to hack *.mil from a windows two-dozzen? or the such ...