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Microsoft's Cloud Computing Contract with Pentagon Cancelled

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Don't know if it will have any impact on the Xbox side of things (probably not), but it's never a good thing when a $10-billion contract get's pulled off the table. Reason given for the cancellation was "evolving requirements". Amazon had argued since 2019 that Trump had influenced the contract decision as he was speaking unfavorably of Amazon at the time.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...-were-arguing-over/ar-AALQgZR?ocid=uxbndlbing
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
The agency also announced it would accept proposals from Microsoft and Amazon for a new cloud-computing contract, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability.

Sounds more like the government wanted to be done with the headache of the litigation and are overhauling the requirements of the project to the point where it's a brand new project and are letting the cloud providers start from square one.
 
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This does matter for gaming because it's money for the main company. And the contract should rightfully be canceled because it was illegally interfered with by the last president in office solely out of petty grievances with Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post.

Amazon took it to court, knowing there would be evidence of this interference, and I always knew they would find plenty of people who, once under oath, weren't going to lie about the illegal influence by the Trump White House. My assumption was that they would just take a "sorry, too late, already moved forward with Microsoft, can't afford to go back now, national security and all."

But to handle this process the right way, it has to be done the way the Pentagon is doing it right now.
 

This does matter for gaming because it's money for the main company. And the contract should rightfully be canceled because it was illegally interfered with by the last president in office solely out of petty grievances with Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post.

Amazon took it to court, knowing there would be evidence of this interference, and I always knew they would find plenty of people who, once under oath, weren't going to lie about the illegal influence by the Trump White House. My assumption was that they would just take a "sorry, too late, already moved forward with Microsoft, can't afford to go back now, national security and all."

But to handle this process the right way, it has to be done the way the Pentagon is doing it right now.
Seems like they are just going to split the contract 50/50 between Microsoft and Amazon now to keep them both happy.
 
Seems like they are just going to split the contract 50/50 between Microsoft and Amazon now to keep them both happy.

Seems so, but I DO know that Amazon was the CLEAR and away favorite to win much if not most of this contract before Trump intervened, so this could be bad news or at least a setback for them. The reason why I think this is relevant to gaming is because things like this please the very top at Microsoft. The more deals like this they manage to win for their cloud business, the more it opens things up financially and takes pressure off Xbox in terms of its operations.
 
It looked shady from the beginning.

I love Microsoft, but that contract was wrongfully given due to political interference. Everybody in national security circles and even in cloud networking circles knew this was a contract that Amazon was heavily favored to receive from the Pentagon. They had been working with them on the plans for some time only for everybody involved to have the rug pulled out from underneath them by the White House.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
AALQ9ND.img


Use your imagination...
 

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
I'm in the cloud business and to split the contract between MSFT and Amazon is probably the wrong way to go. Multi-cloud rarely goes well with it's added complexities and tracking issues. Then again, this is the federal government, so I expect them to make a choice that was designed and decided by committee, rather than rolling out the most advanced, efficient and effective cloud integration.
 

Jaysen

Banned
Defense contracts threads definitely belong on gaming side where we seemingly have people whose lives revolve around defending idiotic decisions made by corporations.
 

BabyYoda

Banned
If Trump did it, they will do the opposite, this is the kind of mentality we are dealing with with the current admin.
 
If Trump did it, they will do the opposite, this is the kind of mentality we are dealing with with the current admin.
No, it was illegally done period. Amazon sued in Court because they knew evidence would definitely emerge once people started going under oath that Donald Trump, only because he doesn't like the Washington Post stories about him and Bezos of Amazon owns the washington post, inappropriately leaned on the Pentagon to not give the contract to Amazon at all. That's how Microsoft in a surprise won the whole contract.
 

Corndog

Banned
This does matter for gaming because it's money for the main company. And the contract should rightfully be canceled because it was illegally interfered with by the last president in office solely out of petty grievances with Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post.

Amazon took it to court, knowing there would be evidence of this interference, and I always knew they would find plenty of people who, once under oath, weren't going to lie about the illegal influence by the Trump White House. My assumption was that they would just take a "sorry, too late, already moved forward with Microsoft, can't afford to go back now, national security and all."

But to handle this process the right way, it has to be done the way the Pentagon is doing it right now.
There’s no politics here anymore. Give it a rest.
 
There’s no politics here anymore. Give it a rest.

You don't seem to understand. Politics is the reason for this period. I'm not bringing up politics to state any position, I'm pointing out a fact and proper background about this contract. The below is the reason that what took place today happened. A inspector general report where they said they were blocked from getting information they needed, and then a court challenge by Amazon, which was later upheld, saying the case can't be dismissed. This is the Pentagon now seeking to fix the legal mess.



'We could not definitively determine the full extent or nature of interactions that administration officials had, or may have had, with senior DoD officials regarding the JEDI Cloud procurement because of the assertion of a "presidential communications privilege,"' the report said, referring to the Department of Defense by its acronym.




Amazon has been protesting the move, saying that it was driven in part by Trump’s bias against the company. Trump often criticizes Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, claiming the newspaper unfairly covers his administration.

Court documents filed last December laid out in greater detail why AWS is challenging the decision. In them, AWS alleged Trump launched “behind-the-scenes attacks” against the company, which caused it to lose out on the cloud contract. AWS has called for the Defense Department to terminate the award and conduct another review of the submitted proposals.

Earlier this week, Amazon said in newly unsealed court documents that it’s looking to depose Trump, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Defense Secretary James Mattis as part of its protest of the JEDI cloud contract award. Amazon argues that it needs to hear from Trump to learn the scope of his involvement in the bidding process.


A Federal Claims Court judge on Wednesday declined to toss out Amazon.com Inc.’s claims that political interference cost the company a lucrative Pentagon cloud contract, throwing the entire project into doubt.

Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith in Washington rejected requests by the government and Microsoft Corp., which was awarded the cloud computing deal in October 2019, to dismiss Amazon’s bias allegations because the company failed to raise them early enough. Her full opinion in the matter was filed under seal.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole

reksveks

Member
Markets don't care cause they already priced this in, we kinda knew that this was going to happen for a while.

Also the argument that this is relevant for gaming is a pretty weak one, do we then start posting threads everytime Microsoft do get a contract in this part of the forum?

Just want to know the rules.

Ps yes, Trump probably did f£&? Bezos cause of the Washington Post
 
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Unknown?

Member
I love Microsoft, but that contract was wrongfully given due to political interference. Everybody in national security circles and even in cloud networking circles knew this was a contract that Amazon was heavily favored to receive from the Pentagon. They had been working with them on the plans for some time only for everybody involved to have the rug pulled out from underneath them by the White House.
Who gives a crap, they're both actively helping the government with warrantless wiretapping.
 

BabyYoda

Banned
No, it was illegally done period. Amazon sued in Court because they knew evidence would definitely emerge once people started going under oath that Donald Trump, only because he doesn't like the Washington Post stories about him and Bezos of Amazon owns the washington post, inappropriately leaned on the Pentagon to not give the contract to Amazon at all. That's how Microsoft in a surprise won the whole conTrump
I don't believe a word of that, the whole thing is so corrupt, Trump is one of the few that can't be bought, that's one of the main reasons they don't like him. When it all comes out into the open, remember this conversation ;)
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Literally zero to do with gaming, and MS is one of the few companies that $10bil is not worth losing sleep over anyway.
 

Zeroing

Banned
Recently I’ve rewatch Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 on when USA invaded Iraq, MS was happy to go to business in that country to “rebuild” because opportunities.

it happens all the time, Trump, George W. Bush, Clinton… American politics is very weird.
 
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