Stefan Mileschin

Get your foot off the brake of $10 billion Pentagon cloud contract

Four Republican members of US Congress, including House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mac Thornberry, have told President Donald Trump to stop messing around with the $10 billion cloud contract with the Defence Department.

Trump has said his administration was looking closely at Amazon.com’s bid on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract after getting complaints from other tech companies.

The “other tech companies” objecting to the plan is Oracle, which could not bid for the project because it is too big. It wanted it broken up so that it could bid.

Trump does not like Amazon much, but he is rather fond of Oracle’s Safra A. Catz who was even shortlisted as one of his security advisors.

However, that seems to have got the other republicans cross. After all, they were also lobbied on the matter.

“We believe that it is essential for our national security to move forward as quickly as possible with the award and implementation of this contract”, said the letter, a copy of which has been seen by Reuters.

Earlier this month, Oracle lost a lawsuit challenging the award process, which it said violated federal procurement laws and was tainted by conflicts of interest. A judge ruled Oracle did not have standing to claim the decision wronged it because it did not meet the contract requirements.

The lawmakers, including Thornberry, Michael Turner, Elise Stefanik and Robert Wittman, said in the letter that the House Armed Services Committee has conducted oversight of the contract from the start and that the courts have upheld the Defence Department’s “handling of the competition.

“Understandably, some of the companies competing for the contract are disappointed at not being selected as one of the finalists”, the letter said, adding that further delays will hurt the country’s security and increase costs for the contract.
https://fudzilla.com/news/49092-repu...to-the-oracles