Amazon.com Inc.(NASDAQ: AMZN) is challenging the Pentagon’s recent award of a $10-billion U.S. cloud computing contract to Microsoft Corp, (NASDAQ: MSFT) claiming that politics prevented a fair contracting process.
Amazon has filed notice that it will formally protest the decision on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, known as "JEDI." The company says that the contract award could not be objective when the president was disparaging one of the contestants. U.S. President Donald Trump has consistently criticized Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos.
A challenge to the Defense Department’s award announced last month was widely expected by legal experts, analysts and consultants. Amazon had been viewed as the favorite for the contract, part of a broader digital modernization process at the Pentagon, before Microsoft emerged as the surprise winner in late October.
It is not yet clear if Amazon will file a formal lawsuit against the U.S. government over the contract award to Microsoft.
