Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tech.newstatesman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 56 posts

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

#31

Post by chrisco255 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #23
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...

> On a contract worth $10bn does tens of millions really make a difference? In government contracting, if cost is supposedly the formal deciding criteria, yes. The allegation isn't that the cost amount was significant as a value amount, but that it's one of many examples raised of the DoD allegedly making decisions for which pretexts are offered that are inconsistent with the facts. The laws of government contracting…

The laws of government contracting? What laws do you speak of? By the way there is corrupt political favoritism going on at all levels of government and it is naive to assume otherwise.

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

#32

Post by actuator »

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.

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

#33

Post by dragonwriter »

chrisco255 wrote: post #24
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...

Did you read his post? Amazon rigged the selection criteria in their favor.

> Did you read his post? Amazon rigged the selection criteria in their favor.

Which may, legal or not, be a legitimate basis for complaint, but even if so it wouldn't mitigate the utterly indefensible and clearly corrupt (if true) conduct by the government Amazon describes after the selection criteria was set.

Contracting officials corruptly collaborating with Amazon to set the criteria doesn't excuse the DoD subsequently corruptly ignoring the selection criteria to hand the contract to Microsoft as political retribution based on the President’s animus toward Jeff Bezos.

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

#34

Post by acruns »

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 have personally been through this process, albeit not a $10B contract but very very large, and it comes down to relationships. Jeff should be doing everything he can to steal away that msft sales team that came in and made them look like fools so they can win the next bid. He isn't playing against Barnes and Nobles, this is a corporation that will spend tens of millions developing a competing product and give it away for free for years to bankrupt it's competitors, they don't play fair.

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

#36

Post by dehrmann »

Bedon292 wrote: post #17
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...

Yes. If two proposals both of the same exact technical level and Amazon was a cheaper price, then the government is supposed to go with the one that saves the taxpayer money. The government should provide detailed evidence to the taxpayers as to why it needs to go with a more expensive options. I am all for having competition in the space, but if Microsoft is not giving a clearly superior product for the money then w…

Hence the joke about everything from bridges to the Space Shuttle being "built by the lowest bidder."

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

#37

Post by Bedon292 »

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…

Worth noting that Oracle sued on your first point, and the courts did not agree that there was any actual issues with the RFP. [1]

Also worth noting that their argument is that the President illegally interfered in the bidding process. And that a Judge agreed earlier this year that there was enough issues with the award that they halted the work on the contract. [2]

I want to see Microsoft in the space so there is more competition, but at the same time, there is definitely some issues to be addressed.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/03/oracle-loses-10b-jedi-clou... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/judge-halts-microsoft-work...

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

#38

Post by Analemma_ »

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.

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.

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

#39

Post by mlvljr »

christkv wrote: post #10
echelon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly. Bezos and top brass must be infuriated given that Amazon was involved in crafting the proposal. It's good for everybody that there is diversity in cloud. We need multiple leaders in the space to keep costs low.

They got out corrupted on their own setup. Amazon cry me a River.

Cool pun, hands down.

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

#40

Post by cryptica »

The $10 billion was printed out of thin air by the Federal Reserve Bank and given to the government in exchange for some bonds which they also created out of thin air... And then that money was given to Microsoft as part of this phony contract.

The real story here is that Microsoft is getting $10 billion of free money from the government and Amazon is upset about it.

Post reply on HN