Amazon is Quietly Still Fighting the JEDI Decision

Microsoft vice president Frank Shaw today alleged that Amazon continues to fight the U.S. Department of Justice’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract award out of the public eye.

“We received notice on Tuesday that Amazon has filed yet another protest—this time, out of view of the public and directly with the DoD—about their losing bid for the JEDI cloud contract,” he writes in a new post amusingly titled “Bid high, lose, try again.” “Amazon’s complaint is confidential, so we don’t know what it says. However, if their latest complaint mirrors the arguments Amazon made in court, it’s likely yet another attempt to force a re-do because they bid high and lost the first time.”

Shaw’s highlighting of what Microsoft feels is the real reason Amazon lost the JEDI contract is interesting because it contrasts so sharply with the commonly-accepted narrative: Amazon, the story goes, was the better choice to win this market, but because Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post, which has been highly critical of the historically terrible U.S. president, the White House pressured the DOJ to choose Microsoft instead.

Not so, says Shaw. Instead, Amazon’s bid for the contract was far higher than Microsoft’s.

“Amazon is at it again, trying to grind this process to a halt, keeping vital technology from the men and women in uniform—the very people Amazon says it supports,” Shaw, a U.S. Marine veteran points out. “Why do this? … We don’t know the content of Amazon’s complaint, as it avoids the public scrutiny of a court filing. But we do know that the changes DoD have made based on the judge’s ruling do not allow Amazon to undo its earlier business decision to bid high, which resulted in their loss. It does not allow Amazon to completely re-do its pricing, especially now that it knows Microsoft’s price and has a target to shoot at. And it does not allow Amazon to tilt the playing field in its favor.”

Very interesting.