Why Is Amazon Chasing DoD Work?
June 2, 2018
Next week I will describe some of our findings from what has been our Amazon “policeware” research. On June 5, 2018, I will post a video snippet from my presentation and issue a short article in this blog.
Yesterday I had a call with a person who explained that I was in the dark about Amazon’s reasons for chasing a Department of Defense cloud services contract. The person explaining my intellectual shortcomings was articulating a viewpoint which from my research team’s point of view was at odds with reality.
I declined to engage in what I interpreted as a lure to get me to explain our principal Amazon findings.
The purpose of this short blog post is to provide a bit of color about why US government cloud contracts are catnip to the Internet lions and tigers.
The information surfaced in the story “Leaked Emails Show Google Expected Lucrative Military Drone AI Work to Grow Exponentially.” The write up states:
The [leaked Google] September emails show that Google’s business development arm expected the military drone artificial intelligence revenue to ramp up from an initial $15 million to an eventual $250 million per year.
There’s the answer revenue. Greed and desire override many other factors, particularly when the Internet lions and tigers want to find ways to pump up revenues using the government’s need for technology.
There are opportunities to propose new work. There are support contracts. There are multi-year deals. And for savvy government capture professionals other options from revolving doors to deals with insider integrators.
You can read the story which reveals the details and some of the projections for future Goggle government work. But the headline for the story sums up the factoids in the article in two words: Grow and Exponentially.
Now back to Amazon. For those who think of Amazon as a digital Wal-Mart with a back office cloud services business, the idea that the US government could see Amazon as the next big thing seems silly.
Perhaps the information I will share on June 5, 2018, will allow a different view of the wonky outfit which sells avocados at a discount and provides video entertainment to those who prefer the kick back approach to data gathering.
On the other hand, I’m wrong. Google’s technology will not find its way into DoD hardware, software, and systems. And, obviously, Amazon just sells books.
Maybe Google will bring back the “evil” catchphrase and become a management maestro? Maybe.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2018
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