- The Pentagon has split a six-year $9 billion contract for cloud computing services among Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL Google, Oracle Corp ORCL, Amazon.com Inc AMZN and Microsoft Corp MSFT.
- The U.S. Department of Defense's move came a year after scrapping a previous contract marred by accusations of political interference by the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump and bogged down by legal challenges, the Financial Times reports.
- The Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability succeeded the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (Jedi), which aimed to build a large common commercial cloud for the entire DoD.
- The Trump administration wanted to concentrate the cloud computing program under one provider.
- The project is estimated to be completed by June 2028.
- The DoD initially awarded Microsoft the contract in October 2018, but legal challenges delayed its implementation.
- Last summer, the Pentagon canceled the initial Jedi contract.
- Amazon had charged Trump with exploiting his animosity against Jeff Bezos.
- Oracle said the single-vendor contract was unfair, while Google had withdrawn its bid in 2018 following a staff outcry for working with the DoD.
© 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.