O’Brien Report from Providence Rhode Island disclosed that, 4 companies will contribute to the Pentagon $9 billion contract.
According to O’Brien Report, Google, Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon will share in the Pentagon’s $9 billion contract to build its cloud computing network.
O’Brien Report further highlighted that, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability is aimed at providing access to unclassified, secret and top-secret data to military personnel all over the globe. “It is anticipated to serve as a backbone for the Pentagon’s modern war operations, which will rely heavily on unmanned aircraft and space communications satellites, but will still need a way to quickly get the intelligence from those platforms to troops on the ground,” it stated.
Pentagon in a statement stated that, the contract would be awarded in parts, with a total estimated completion date of June 2028.
“Competition is intense to snap up big corporate and government cloud contracts awards, to build global computing networks where information is stored, shared and secured over the internet instead of local computer systems. The Pentagon’s award is seen as one of the most coveted because it’s a stamp of approval in a market where ensuring a client’s data security is important.”
O’Brien Report
Cancellation Of JEDI Contract
According to O’Brien’s Report, in the month of July last year, the Pentagon announced the cancellation of its previous cloud computing award, then named JEDI. “At the time, the Pentagon said that, due to delays in proceeding with the contract, technology had changed to the extent that the old contract, which was awarded to Microsoft, no longer met DOD’s needs,” it disclosed.
“There was no vivid explanation concerning the legal challenges behind those delays, which had come from Amazon, the losing bidder. Amazon had questioned whether former President Donald Trump’s administration had steered the contract toward Microsoft due to Trump’s adversarial relationship with Amazon’s chief executive officer at the time, Jeff Bezos.”
O’Brien Report
The Pentagon’s Chief Information Officer, John Sherman, revealed during the cancellation of the award that, both Amazon and Microsoft were likely to get some portion of the business in a new award.
O’Brien’s Report further revealed that, a report by the Pentagon’s Inspector General did not find evidence of improper influence, but it said it could not determine the extent of administration interactions with Pentagon decision makers, because the White House would not allow unfettered access to witnesses.
Forrester analyst Devin Dickerson concluded that, awarding the contract to four companies instead of one shows a “multi cloud strategy” that could improve the Pentagon’s bargaining position with major cloud providers and make it easier for individual offices within the Defense Department to acquire cloud technologies and services.
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