Pentagon review says $10 billion cloud contract to Microsoft is legal

The Donald Trump government has found no legal problem in awarding the prestigious $10 billion Pentagon Cloud computing project to Microsoft despite Amazon Web Services (AWS) being leading the race.

Washington, April 16 The Donald Trump government has found no legal problem in awarding the prestigious $10 billion Pentagon Cloud computing project to Microsoft despite Amazon Web Services (AWS) being leading the race.

The US Department of Defense's Inspector General said Microsoft's win of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract was not influenced by President Trump as alleged by Amazon, reports Fox News.

In its investigation report, made public on Wednesday, the Inspector General said awarding JEDI to a single company, rather than dividing it up, still stands, added a ZDNet report.

"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 DoD report said.

AWS was yet to react to the DoD report.

AWS, Amazon's Cloud arm, asked a US judge earlier this year to force a stay of work on Microsoft's $10 billion Cloud contract until the court can rule on Amazon's protest over the Pentagon awarding JEDI to Microsoft.

Amazon sought 'preliminary injunction' from the court to temporarily block Microsoft from starting work on the JEDI project won by Microsoft in October last year.

"It's important that the numerous evaluation errors and blatant political interference that impacted the JEDI award decision be reviewed. AWS is absolutely committed to supporting the DoD's modernisation efforts and to an expeditious legal process that resolves this matter as quickly as possible," an AWS spokesperson had said.

Amazon last year filed a suit with the US Court of Federal Claims contesting the decision.

In its complaint against the government decision, Amazon alleged Trump abused his position to put "improper pressure" on decision-makers for personal gains and show his hatred towards Jeff Bezos who owns The Washington Post.

( With inputs from IANS )