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It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

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Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#11

Post by ross2990 »

gaukes wrote: post #4

> Even if you believe that Amazon may have started as the front runner, it’s clear our team worked hard to catch up and surpass them by investing in our technology and listening to the DoD. Is MSFT actually ahead?

Maybe not on the raw technology for edge cases, but in terms of actually supporting DoD business needs it is for sure. I have worked for two branches in the past 4 years assisting in migration to Office365 and certain legacy database systems into Azure. The vast majority of legacy IT in the DoD essentially supports AD/Office/Exchange which is far easier to migrate.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#12

Post by sterlind »

partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

I work for MS but don't know anything about the bidding process. I was a little surprised we won, but now it makes sense. I feel like even if they can't get the DoD to let them re-bid now that they have proprietary information on us and our bid, they'll tie us up in court as long as they can to keep us from successfully delivering. They want to maintain the head start they made with GovCloud as long as possible and keep other companies out. Icky.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#13

Post by thaumasiotes »

> there is a very specific issue before the court at the moment. It may seem arcane and procedural, but the back-and-forth arguments between Amazon and the government raise a key question of principle and fairness that should matter to us all. Namely, should a company—like Amazon—that bid high and lost, now get a do-over, especially now—as the IG’s report makes clear—Amazon received additional proprietary information about Microsoft’s bid that it should never have had.

Actually, I don't really see the problem. There are two hypothetical models:

1. Everyone gets to bid for the work once, and if they get it wrong, too bad for them. What's right and what's wrong? Depends on your point of view. What matters is that everyone got the same single chance to bid for a government contract.

2. Everyone bids for the contract. If their bid isn't being accepted, they're free to adjust it. What matters is what the terms ultimately are, not what they were at the start of bidding.

You may recognize that second model as the normal way everything is sold everywhere. What's supposed to be wrong with Amazon quoting a price for something, not getting a sale, and then lowering the price? We should hope they do, and that Microsoft responds by lowering their price even more.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#16

Post by techntoke »

gaukes wrote: post #4

> Even if you believe that Amazon may have started as the front runner, it’s clear our team worked hard to catch up and surpass them by investing in our technology and listening to the DoD. Is MSFT actually ahead?

Microsoft is losing big time to Linux and open source. They are basically being forced to implement Linux inside Windows, because Windows sucks at automation and scaling, and Linux is now the dominant technology in enterprise. Vendors like Microsoft don't sell software because it is superior, they do it because they can buy the signature of whoever can make the decision.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#17

Post by ross2990 »

partiallypro wrote: post #2

My take on this whole thing, is the Amazon basically wrote the entire scope...so they just thought they were going to win because only they would meet it (this was a bit of a scandal just a few months back.) They bid high, and then they lost. Now they are mad that their lobbying wasn't a 100% success, so they are suing. It's all so very Amazon.

When JEDI was first proposed, AWS had already been the vast majority of cloud services for the Intelligence community. This led to them having a distinct advantage because they already had the certified infrastructure to handle US Secret and Top Secret information. This was (in my own thoughts) why that immediate capability was stressed so much in the initial request for proposal.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#18

Post by wnevets »

ceejayoz wrote: post #7

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/pentagon-amazon-tru... > The Pentagon’s inspector general “could not definitively determine” whether the White House influenced the procurement process for a major cloud computing contract because senior Defense Department officials were barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews, according to a 313-page report released on Wednesday.

>barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews

So probably yes.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#19

Post by eganist »

ceejayoz wrote: post #7

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/pentagon-amazon-tru... > The Pentagon’s inspector general “could not definitively determine” whether the White House influenced the procurement process for a major cloud computing contract because senior Defense Department officials were barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews, according to a 313-page report released on Wednesday.

I mean, in an ideal world I'd think this would be an automatic DQ, but we live in the darkest timeline.

Re: It bid high and lost. Should Amazon be allowed a do-over on JEDI?

#20

Post by roel_v »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #13

> there is a very specific issue before the court at the moment. It may seem arcane and procedural, but the back-and-forth arguments between Amazon and the government raise a key question of principle and fairness that should matter to us all. Namely, should a company—like Amazon—that bid high and lost, now get a do-over, especially now—as the IG’s report makes clear—Amazon received additional proprietary information…

Of course you can construct an argument for anything if you can just make up things. The fact here is that there is only one reality: your option 1. Those are the rules for any closed bid procurement processes. Who is going to bid for anything if they know they will be in a race to the bottom even after spending all their time on the initial bid?
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