Amazon wins big as court suspends US military contract with Microsoft worth $10 billion

Amazon on Thursday received a piece of good news after a federal court in the United States ordered the Department of Defence to temporarily block its multi-billion cloud computing contract with Microsoft. Last month, Amazon Web Services (AWS) had filed a formal motion asking the court to pause the contract citing errors and bias in awarding the contract. US judge Patricia Campbell-Smith barred the Department of Defence and Microsoft from starting work on the project known as JEDI, Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure.

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Amazon vs DoD

According to reports, Amazon has alleged that it was snubbed out of the project because of bias and vendetta by President Donald Trump. Microsoft and the Department of Defence have criticised the ruling. A DoD spokesperson while talking to the media said that Pentagon is upset with the court's ruling and believe that the actions have delayed implementing DoD's modernisation strategy. The JEDI contract is intended to modernise the US military's IT operations. As per reports, the contract is worth $10 billion and Microsoft was awarded the contract on October 25 last year. 

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In April last year, Microsoft and Amazon were picked up as the two finalists to provide the contract by the Department of Defence, after other contenders like IBM and Oracle were ruled out of the race. In July the same year, President Donald Trump said that he was looking into the contract after IBM and other companies complained about the bidding process. Microsoft was eventually awarded the contract. Media reports have been long speculating that AWS was ruled out of the contract because of the President's bias against the company. As per reports, Donald Trump often criticises Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, a newspaper critical of Trump administration and its policies. 

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