Pentagon: $10B cloud contract that snubbed Amazon was legal
By ROBERT BURNS AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A government watchdog agency says the Defense Department’s decision-making process in awarding a major cloud computing contract to Microsoft was in line with legal and government purchasing standards. The contract, potentially worth $10 billion, was awarded to Microsoft last October, prompting tech rival Amazon to cry foul. Amazon filed suit claiming, among other things, that the White House improperly influenced the decision to award the contract to Microsoft. In its report released Wednesday, the Pentagon’s inspector general said the review could not fully determine whether there was White House interference because the White House invoked “presidential communications privilege.”