The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract was awarded to Microsoft by the Defense Department — for the second time, after a 10-month long legal battle filed by top contract contender, Amazon Web Services. The $10 billion contract has come under the fire of several controversies and delays prior to the legal protests spanning over two years. Eric Crusius, partner at Holland & Knight, has followed the JEDI cloud contract award proceedings from the beginning and says that although not unprecedented, it has been a long process for a contract of its critical nature.
“I think we’re still at least three or four months away from a final decision, but this case is a lot more complicated. We have an agency-level protest that was also filed by Amazon, so there’s a lot of branches of this protest tree, and it’s going to take a while to bring those all in together for a final resolution,” said Crusius.
The news of DoD awarding the JEDI contract to Microsoft again prompted Amazon Web Services to post a blog calling the contract award “politically corrupted.” According to a statement given to NextGov, Microsoft is “ready to get to work and make sure that those who serve our country have access to this much needed technology.”
