The JEDI Knight Wounds Amazon
April 17, 2020
The Bezos bulldozer has stalled against a bureaucratic stone wall. The overheated engine is idling in outside the Pentagon Metro stop. DarkCyber was informed by a couple of helpful readers that the US government is going Microsoft for the significant Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure Project. A representative summary of the review of the contract process appeared in “Pentagon: $10B Cloud Contract That Snubbed Amazon Was Legal.” The write up reported:
“We could not review this matter fully because of the assertion of a ‘presidential communications privilege,’ which resulted in several DOD witnesses being instructed by the DOD Office of General Counsel not to answer our questions about potential communications between White House and DOD officials about JEDI,” the report said.
“As a result, we could not be certain whether there were any White House communications with some DOD officials which may have affected the JEDI procurement,” it said.
“However, we believe the evidence we received showed that the DOD personnel who evaluated the contract proposals and awarded Microsoft the JEDI cloud contract were not pressured … by any DOD leaders more senior to them, who may have communicated with the White House,” the report said.
Clear enough. Amazon’s bulldozer may have to reverse and head over to other Executive Branch agencies. Copies of the Bezos bulldozer have been spotted in Australia pushing insurance data and in United Arab Emirates moving digital sand for the government.
The problem for Amazon is that displacing PowerPoint is a very, very tough mountain to move. Just ask Google. Palantir’s baby forklift moved some paperwork while forming a relationship with a certain figure of note in Washington, DC.
Maybe Amazon should wear a fashionable Azure T shirt and wear a Dwarven Ring of Power from The Lord of the Rings available on Etsy?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
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