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Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#421

Post by mav3rick »

dragonelite wrote: post #411
wolco wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do we make of the remaining bidders? aws.. the employees would be fired if they revolted. Microsoft the employees didn't care to revolt. The fact that google employees could revolt and change a big decision says something. Tons of stories on why google is evil and microsoft and amazon are the toast of the town. I would rather have google in that position vs amazon/microsoft/oracle because there is a soul and hea…

Didn't Microsoft employees revolt when Microsoft was making some special Hololens devices for the US army?

They were quickly clamped down even for this contract.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#422

Post by solidasparagus »

Retric wrote: post #318
solidasparagus wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a self-centered PoV (not meant as a criticism) which focuses on the wrong things when trying to understand the state of the cloud market. What really matters long-term is who is acquiring the new-to-public-cloud customers as they move away from on-prem and who is attracting the new high-value workloads (AI). These are not growth of existing customer base which is why I think raw numbers are more useful…

Revenue growth comes from both new customers and existing customers. As Assure includes many large companies like Walmart and where AWS has more startups that’s likely important. Let’s suppose Assure increases revenue from existing customers by 4% (inflation + growth) 18 * .04 = .7B and AWS increases by 8% (inflation + growth) = 36.1 * .08 = 2.9B. Which would mean 10.6 - .7 = $9.9B revenue from new customers for Assu…

The important revenue growth comes from new customers and new workloads. You mention inflation as if it is a meaningful driver of increased revenue, but AWS has never raised its prices for any service AFAIK. Growth is 100% driven by increased usage.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#423

Post by sorokod »

philwelch wrote: post #331
meddlepal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Core to many Texans identity is a belief that someday Texas is going to secede from the Union again and become its own independent country. Don't get me wrong, I love Texas and I love many of the Texans I've met for being some of the chillest, most down to earth, pragmatic and welcoming people I have ever met, but they are a bit weird about this particular issue sometimes.

The US is a truly gargantuan country; large states like Texas are already richer, bigger, and more populous than many or most independent countries. In fact Texas once was an independent country.

Right - was it not Mexico?

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#424

Post by Retric »

solidasparagus wrote: post #422
Retric wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue growth comes from both new customers and existing customers. As Assure includes many large companies like Walmart and where AWS has more startups that’s likely important. Let’s suppose Assure increases revenue from existing customers by 4% (inflation + growth) 18 * .04 = .7B and AWS increases by 8% (inflation + growth) = 36.1 * .08 = 2.9B. Which would mean 10.6 - .7 = $9.9B revenue from new customers for Assu…

The important revenue growth comes from new customers and new workloads. You mention inflation as if it is a meaningful driver of increased revenue, but AWS has never raised its prices for any service AFAIK. Growth is 100% driven by increased usage.

Amazon showing +0$ annual growth would be a decrease in the face of inflation. Decreasing hardware and networking costs muddle the picture, but inflation means standing still is falling behind.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#425

Post by accounn »

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…

exotic windows 10.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#426

Post by jmckib »

shitgoose wrote: post #396
stbtrax wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any specific reasons to cite for this belief? It sounds like a minority of the population find certain facts inconvenient when they conflict with their world view. This doesn't mean that the way news is being reported is changing, unless you prefer "alternate facts".

I am not from US, so I don't count for minority or majority. Specific reasons... Just watch 5 min of CNN, MSNBC, 30 seconds of Maddow or Don Lemon. Staggering amounts of venom and obsession. This is not news anymore. This is an alternative reality.

I was talking about newspaper journalism though, which seems to be as solid as ever. TV journalism, on the other hand, appears to have become more polarized, though there's still good programs out there. I'd definitely avoid opinion hosts like Maddow, Tucker Carlson, Hannity etc, since they aren't even real journalists.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#427

Post by TomMckenny »

m0zg wrote: post #230
TomMckenny wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Post runs the same stories seen in essentially all papers in the world. A lot of them implicate the president negatively. But how does precluding the pentagon from it's first choice on these grounds good for the country? In a free and uncorrupt country, you don't allow leaders to intervene in national security issues because they are embarrassed by a paper's coverage. Thus few people are directly saying that amaz…

There's no such thing as "corruption free" country. The US is very, very far from corruption-free, both in the government and outside it. It's less corrupt than, say, Zimbabwe, but that's not saying much. Basically one has to ask themselves a question: given that the mainstream press is wildly unprofitable (with very few exceptions), might there be a reason why its owners sinks hundreds of millions of dollars into ke…

> Chomsky has been railing against it ... they're controlled by five rich men

That is a real problem, certainly in normal times. And likely decades of derailing reforms in the interest of consumers and employees is what led to the frustration that created the current catastrophe. I note even now broadcast media certainly dwells on the trade war far more than other more pressing problems.

So stories should be confirmed by looking at serious publicly owned and overseas news sources. And if a particular series of stories is in the WaPo and NPR and BBC and the Guardian and Der Spiegel and FAZ and NHK and Le Monde and El Pais then we know it is not a rich man's plot. And if privately owned media has a pro-wealth bent, maybe an autocratic kletopcray is a bit much for some of them. Especially for non-hereditary billionaires many of whom really do want to make the world better (within certain economic constraints of course)

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#428

Post by paulddraper »

sorokod wrote: post #423
philwelch wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a truly gargantuan country; large states like Texas are already richer, bigger, and more populous than many or most independent countries. In fact Texas once was an independent country.

Right - was it not Mexico?

Texas existed as a self-proclaimed sovereign nation for the better part of a decade.

It began with the Texas Revolution and independence from Mexico. (Remember the Alamo!)

Texas immediately wanted to be annexed by the U.S., but the U.S. was reluctant about a potential war with Mexico. (Which when Texas was finally annexed, is exactly what happened.)

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#429

Post by PunchTornado »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #364
205guy wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Catalonia? They seem to actually want independence more than the ones you list.

And it would probably be one of the best things that happened to them if they could manage to do it peacefully. They are a completely different culture, language, economic prospects, etc. Spain just wants to keep taxing them to support the rest of the country. But how is that ever a good reason for keeping an entire culture subject to historical imperialism?

rubbish. completely different culture and language? I lived in Barcelona and you could do everything in Spanish. The same can be said about various regions in Italy. Have you been to Sicily? Very different language, culture, food etc.

And by the polls ~50% of Catalonians don't want independence.

Re: Microsoft Wins Pentagon’s $10B Contract

#430

Post by techntoke »

noelsusman wrote: post #395
twoheadedboy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the Post is related to this, specifically?

The White House basically ordered this contract to not go to Amazon because Trump doesn't like how the Washington Post covers him.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted when this is the top news of the day
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