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Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#131

Post by p0rkbelly »

serf wrote: post #119
p0rkbelly wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't followed Bezos too closely, but, never thought of him to be a political person or saw anything where he made political comments. Buying the Washington Post certainly forced the world around him to see him as political...even if he considers himself not.

> Haven't followed Bezos too closely, but, never thought of him to be a political person or saw anything where he made political comments. You never considered the idea that the richest man in the world may be political? It'd be more surprising for me to find out that he wasn't political; you don't accrue that kind of cash without playing political games at at least some point in your portfolio -- even if it's just f…

Oh, I think he's political. I think he carefully tried not appearing that way though.

My point is, I don't think he bought the Post to be political or political reasons. I think he bought The Post because he's a rich collector of nice/novel/rare things..and it seemed like a fun hobby. At the time.

If someone wanted to sell me The Post or let's say WSJ for what I consider pocket change, I would most certainly be interested. Good journalism is something that is going away, but, the obscenely rich can curate and prop up.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#132

Post by p0rkbelly »

Cyph0n wrote: post #127
p0rkbelly wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does my word processor have to do with my GPU cluster I use for creating ML models?

Did you not install the Word add-in that offloads building the table of references to a GPU cluster?

unfortunately, my excel spreadsheet crashes at 2,147,483,647 rows :(

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#133

Post by Bajeezus »

topkai22 wrote: post #115

Great news for Microsoft, but I hope they don’t end up with the tail wagging the dog. There is a reason that you don’t see many companies straddling the defense/civilian divide that much- the military’s crazy bureaucracy, Legal, contracting, and certification environment means that organizations that work with them often end changing their culture to suit the government, and those cultural changes make them less comp…

Microsoft has had a variety of government contracts, and even government clouds, for a long time. Not sure this will create much of a difference in culture.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#134

Post by jacques_chester »

haack wrote: post #113
TrinaryWorksToo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you mash the "esc" key just as the article loads, and continue tapping it you can read it in its entirety.

I'm really surprised this works. Do you know if that's by design?

It's not. Pressing the escape key stops Javascript from running.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#135

Post by gzer0 »

p0rkbelly wrote: post #92
tanilama wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 Billion is quite a lot. And government contract is very stable income. But I got your point on politics, that is something pretty unpredictable.

It is for sure a lot. AWS wants it. Everyone wants it. But, it is a maximum of $10Billion ...over 10 years. Th at is the key thing to focus on. I'm sure both companies have private sector customers right now that pay a quarter to half-billion a year right now. I think the greater damage is optics vs financial..and optics can cost a lot. Let's say AWS makes $30-Billion this year. So, losing $1-billion this year is 3.3…

It's not only about the $10 billion. Microsoft has essentially cemented being the cloud provider for the Pentagon for the foreseeable future.

Once all of the pentagon is integrated with Azure, after the 10 years are up, it will be very unlikely for Pentagon to want to switch, not only due to costs, but everyone will have been trained specifically for handling Azure.

This gives Microsoft a massive lead in terms of government infrastructure and all but guarantees we'll be seeing more and more contracts handed to Azure.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#136

Post by gumby »

gtirloni wrote: post #37
rshnotsecure wrote: post #26

Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has done a significant amount of work for the NSA. AWS has had GovCloud, and it is true the CIA uses AWS, but MSFT has built out quite well some of the more exotic requests of the NSA. The crown jewel of the NSA’s MSFT partnership is the San Antonio, Texas data center. The “5150 Rogers Road” data center was chosen because Texas has cheap electricity, which is an enormous cost outlay f…

> Texas has a separate electrical grid from the rest of the US. This is interesting. The Wikipedia article has this gem: "The Texas Interconnection is maintained as a separate grid for political, rather than technical reasons" https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-it...

Texas interconnect long predates cloud computing!

MS business has long been built around large corporations and government yes, but this is putting the cart before the horse.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#137

Post by BurningFrog »

techsupporter wrote: post #87
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that weird?

As a native Texan, it's weird for a few reasons: a) Pragmatically, separating from the rest of the United States would be devastating to our economy. Much like the United Kingdom from the EU, but on a much larger scale, because the vast majority of our trade, people, and connectedness come from being part of the U.S. Texans like to trot out the factoid that relatively little land in Texas is owned by the federal gove…

This seems to assume the US would close its borders to an independent Texas.

I would expect there to be a free trade agreement at least as good as for Canada and Mexico.

Canada has similar population as Texas and does very well outside the US. I don't see why Texas couldn't do the same.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#138

Post by SllX »

techsupporter wrote: post #87
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that weird?

As a native Texan, it's weird for a few reasons: a) Pragmatically, separating from the rest of the United States would be devastating to our economy. Much like the United Kingdom from the EU, but on a much larger scale, because the vast majority of our trade, people, and connectedness come from being part of the U.S. Texans like to trot out the factoid that relatively little land in Texas is owned by the federal gove…

As a non-Texan, I would like to ask more about point B.

I myself am increasingly of the opinion that while government, national and State (I’m a Californian) has a role, it has unfortunately carved out too big of a chunk and allocated itself too many roles, often on the most specious of arguments.

The idea of a legislature that meets infrequently, and where politician is a hat, not a job title, actually looks pretty ideal from where I’m standing. Why should I be disabused from this notion?

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#139

Post by p0rkbelly »

gzer0 wrote: post #135
p0rkbelly wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is for sure a lot. AWS wants it. Everyone wants it. But, it is a maximum of $10Billion ...over 10 years. Th at is the key thing to focus on. I'm sure both companies have private sector customers right now that pay a quarter to half-billion a year right now. I think the greater damage is optics vs financial..and optics can cost a lot. Let's say AWS makes $30-Billion this year. So, losing $1-billion this year is 3.3…

It's not only about the $10 billion. Microsoft has essentially cemented being the cloud provider for the Pentagon for the foreseeable future. Once all of the pentagon is integrated with Azure, after the 10 years are up, it will be very unlikely for Pentagon to want to switch, not only due to costs, but everyone will have been trained specifically for handling Azure. This gives Microsoft a massive lead in terms of gov…

Hopefully both sides learn from the long-term downward spiral of HP's contract with the Navy.

https://www.wired.com/2010/08/hp-holds-navy-network-hostage/

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