In what seems to be a never-ending saga, Amazon is preparing to ask a federal court for a temporary injunction preventing Microsoft from working on the Pentagon’s JEDI contract, according to CNN.
Microsoft beat out IBM, Oracle and Amazon for the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract worth some $10 billion. Many industry experts had expected Amazon to win, given the company’s long history working on sensitive government projects. In the wake of Microsoft’s win, Oracle and Amazon have launched legal challenges in an effort to roll back the clock.
In Oracle’s case, it is challenging the terms of the contract award, trying to force a multi-vendor contract rather than winner-takes-all. Even if Oracle was successful, it would still not qualify for the contract for other reasons, but that hasn’t stopped the company from trying.
Amazon, on the other hand, is trying to stop Microsoft from starting on the contract when they’re scheduled to on February 11. As CNN points out, Amazon believes it lost out on the contract due to remarks President Trump made, and is arguing it was unfairly eliminated. Given that Amazon—unlike Oracle—actually had a very good shot of winning the contract, it’s hard to say whether the court will grant the injunction.
Either way, it will be interesting to see how far these two companies take their legal challenges. Even Disney knew when it was time to retire a certain Jedi saga. At least for now, in the context of this JEDI, neither Amazon nor Oracle seem so inclined.
