The Protection Division stated Wednesday that it had awarded profitable cloud-computing contracts to 4 corporations: Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle. The contracts run by way of 2028 and could possibly be valued as excessive as $9 billion, the Pentagon stated in a information launch.
The work is for a brand new cloud structure known as the Joint Warfighting Cloud Functionality, which would supply the Protection Division with cloud companies “throughout all safety domains and classification ranges.”
The choice to award contracts to 4 corporations was a shift for the Pentagon, three years after it had given a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft. That contract, for the Joint Enterprise Protection Infrastructure, often called JEDI, turned a part of a authorized battle over claims that President Donald J. Trump interfered in a course of that favored Microsoft over its rival bidder, Amazon.
“That is the largest cloud Beltway deal in historical past and was a key deal to win for all of the software program distributors on this multiyear cleaning soap opera,” Dan Ives, a tech analyst with Wedbush Securities, stated in an e-mail. “It’s good to lastly finish this chapter and get a cloud deal lastly achieved for the Pentagon after years of a curler coaster.”
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
In 2021, the Protection Division stated it might not transfer ahead with the Microsoft contract, because it “was developed at a time when the division’s wants have been completely different and our cloud conversancy much less mature.”
As a substitute, the Pentagon stated, it might search bids from a number of expertise corporations for the Joint Warfighting Cloud Functionality. Whereas market analysis indicated that Microsoft and Amazon can be greatest positioned to fulfill the wants, officers stated they might additionally attain out to IBM, Oracle and Google.
Wednesday’s announcement on the marquee authorities contract was an enormous win for a wider swath of expertise corporations. The most important of them had pushed aggressively for the sooner JEDI contract, which was seen as the way in which to remodel and modernize the army’s cloud-computing methods. Oracle was among the many corporations that lobbied for the Pentagon to offer cloud-computing and different authorities contracts to a number of corporations.