What you need to know
- Microsoft and Amazon penned heated blog posts going after one another in the dispute over the U.S. government's JEDI contract.
- Microsoft contends Amazon is trying to "force a re-do" of the contract bidding process.
- Amazon counters that Microsoft is "bully its way to an unjust victory."
Microsoft and Amazon's very public spat over the former's winning bid on the Department of Defense's (DoD) JEDI contract got a little uglier this week. The two companies traded blows in heated blog posts after Amazon apparently filed another protest with the DoD.
In a post published Thursday, Microsoft's CVP of communications Frank Shaw said that Amazon is "trying to grind the process to a halt." From Shaw:
This latest filing – filed with the DoD this time – is another example of Amazon trying to bog down JEDI in complaints, litigation and other delays designed to force a do-over to rescue its failed bid. Think about it: Amazon spent the better part of last month fighting in court to prevent the DoD from taking a 120-day pause to address a concern flagged by the judge and reevaluate the bids. Amazon fought for a complete re-do and more delay. Amazon lost. The judge granted the DoD's request for a timeout in the litigation to address her concerns.
Amazon's Drew Herdener responded in a blog post published today, saying, "Recently, Microsoft has published multiple self-righteous and pontificating blog posts that amount to nothing more than misleading noise intended to distract those following the protest." Herdener continued:
To be clear, we won't back down on this front regardless of whether Microsoft chooses to try to bully its way to an unjust victory. We also won't allow blatant political interference or inferior technology to become an acceptable standard.
As currently awarded, the $10 billion JEDI contract would see Microsoft's cloud services used to provide artificial intelligence processing, machine learning, and other services to the DoD. Amazon was granted a stay in DoD's implementation of the JEDI contract after it alleged it was awarded unfairly and political interference poisoned the process.
Recently, the Pentagon's Inspector General completed a review, finding that the contract was awarded fairly based on available evidence. However, the report noted that the IG's office could "not review this matter fully."
