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Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

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Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#41

Post by jakear »

ciarannolan wrote: post #14
stedaniels wrote: post #12

From the AWS blog post [0]. > This time, AWS offered a lower cost by several tens of millions of dollars. On a contract worth $10bn does tens of millions really make a difference? [0] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/jedi-why-we-will-c...

That is probably the weakest and least-relevant argument in the entire post.

And a good lesson on why you should never include known-weak talking points in an argument -- many think that components of an argument are additive, when in reality they're more multiplicative: if you have one weak link, all the opposition needs to do is shape the narrative to make it seem like that's a critical component, then dismantle the whole argument by tearing that single point apart.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#42

Post by [deleted] »

Analemma_ wrote: post #38
actuator wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why Amazon is so bothered about this deal. If I remember the time period correctly, this is a $1B/year deal. That is a low single digit percentage of AWS revenue, do they really want to anger the government and let themselves be exposed to antitrust investigations.

I wonder if it's less about the revenue and more about the credibility boost that Azure will get if everyone sees the Pentagon going all-in on it.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#43

Post by juiyout »

ciarannolan wrote: post #19
bigcorp-slave wrote: post #16

Can someone tell me if I’ve summed this up right? - Amazon colludes behind the scenes to get a contract proposal that on paper only Amazon can fill (e.g. memory sizing options exactly matching things only AWS provides) - There is a competitive bidding process without prices revealed and Microsoft wins - Amazon cries no fair and demands to be allowed to bid again now that they know how much Microsoft bid - Government…

Did you read the AWS blog post? [1] You are missing a massive part of the story. They are accusing the president of interfering in a public procurement process because of his personal dislike of Bezos/Amazon. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/jedi-why-we-will-c...

I read it just now.

It seems that the massive part missed is that AWS claims Trump screwed with AWS.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#44

Post by paganel »

busterarm wrote: post #30
ciarannolan wrote: post #11

Wondering if anyone in these comments actually read the post. They are making a legitimate point about an unfair public procurement process that the president interfered in for personal reasons. > There is a recurring pattern to the way President Trump behaves when he’s called out for doing something egregious: first he denies doing it, then he looks for ways to push it off to the side, to distract attention from it…

First, these are accusations. Second, Amazon influenced the procurement process themselves by being involved in the process that set the criteria -- structuring it in a way that only they should be awarded the contract.

Third, the Amazon main shareholder and acting CEO also owns a newspaper that’s actively involved in fighting Trump.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#45

Post by ciarannolan »

juiyout wrote: post #43
ciarannolan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the AWS blog post? [1] You are missing a massive part of the story. They are accusing the president of interfering in a public procurement process because of his personal dislike of Bezos/Amazon. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/jedi-why-we-will-c...

I read it just now. It seems that the massive part missed is that AWS claims Trump screwed with AWS.

That's what I was referring to. I added it to my comment to make it less snarky.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#46

Post by jpalomaki »

actuator wrote: post #32
bigcorp-slave wrote: post #16

Can someone tell me if I’ve summed this up right? - Amazon colludes behind the scenes to get a contract proposal that on paper only Amazon can fill (e.g. memory sizing options exactly matching things only AWS provides) - There is a competitive bidding process without prices revealed and Microsoft wins - Amazon cries no fair and demands to be allowed to bid again now that they know how much Microsoft bid - Government…

I wonder why Amazon is so bothered about this deal. If I remember the time period correctly, this is a $1B/year deal. That is a low single digit percentage of AWS revenue, do they really want to anger the government and let themselves be exposed to antitrust investigations.

Maybe this bring lots of other business as well.

If you were to provide for example some data analysis services for DoD, it would certainly make sense to run on same cloud where the data is.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#47

Post by paganel »

acruns wrote: post #34
ciarannolan wrote: post #11

Wondering if anyone in these comments actually read the post. They are making a legitimate point about an unfair public procurement process that the president interfered in for personal reasons. > There is a recurring pattern to the way President Trump behaves when he’s called out for doing something egregious: first he denies doing it, then he looks for ways to push it off to the side, to distract attention from it…

I didn't read it, and won't. Amazon got out played by msft. Bezos is an amateur compared to the likes of the DOD team at msft, buying a mansion in DC to host parties, come on Bezos, such an amateur move. Getting into a public pissing match with the POTUS, stupid. Crying foul for months and months and then writing a story about your slippery slope theory, amateur, and locks you out of more cloud business with .gov. I…

You’re being downvoted for no good reason, fact is MS has a long history of winning government contracts using all available means, Amazon looks to me like the nerd who got into a street fight with only his glasses on, no gloves, no knives, no anything.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#48

Post by ryanmarsh »

chrisco255 wrote: post #27

I don't know how many tens of thousands of small retail businesses are struggling and being hampered by arbitrary government action right now, benefitting Amazon, but it's really hard to feel bad for the $1.5 trillion monopoly right now. Amazon should probably be broken up and it's whining about losing out on a multi billion dollar government contract.

In fed contracting, ironically, small businesses (especially those owned by women, minorities, disabled veterans, etc) are given preferential treatment sometimes to the detriment of thrift.

Regarding this contract, I don’t care who wins so long as it’s one of the hyper scale vendors. The status quo for DevOps, infra, and managed services in DoD is pure hell.

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#49

Post by signal11 »

The history of the JEDI contract is interesting[2018]. It was contested by Oracle and also by IBM, and was widely seen as a last-gasp attempt by two entrenched 'enterprise tech' vendors to remain relevant in the cloud marketplace.

But as [2018] notes, Oracle complained.

> In the complaint, Oracle dives into deep detail about two DOD officials whom it alleges had ties to Amazon Web Services, the cloud company thought to be in the frontrunning for JEDI. Oracle believes those two officials influenced the JEDI strategy to be tailor-fit for an AWS win.

The interesting thing here is that both Oracle and IBM had an initial strategy of painting the JEDI requirements as exceeding DOD's needs, an interesting tactic given their relative lack of scale -- they are in capex terms also-rans in the cloud market.

After a review, in April 2019, the Pentagon said that the employee's actions did not affect the process and further ruled IBM and Oracle out of the process[2019], while retaining Amazon's and Microsoft's bids.

Microsoft was finally awarded the contract in late October, which prompted Amazon to claim "political influence" because of Trump's statements re the contract, and led to a further legal challenge[2020].

[2018] https://www.fedscoop.com/ibms-protest-10b-jedi-cloud-contrac...

[2019] https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2019/12/after-two-y...

[2020] https://tech.newstatesman.com/cloud/amazon-pentagon-contract...

Re: Microsoft’s $10bn Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

#50

Post by Simulacra »

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #16

Can someone tell me if I’ve summed this up right? - Amazon colludes behind the scenes to get a contract proposal that on paper only Amazon can fill (e.g. memory sizing options exactly matching things only AWS provides) - There is a competitive bidding process without prices revealed and Microsoft wins - Amazon cries no fair and demands to be allowed to bid again now that they know how much Microsoft bid - Government…

FWIW: This is why people hire lobbyists, to make sure any procurement is written in such a way so that only the client qualifies. Same with tax credits, and government funding.
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