In case you didn’t know?
Amazon’s dominance of a LOT of things in America includes computer server operations….
Oh, and then there are the reports that Amazon has moved to hire retired intel and defense officials to gain access to inside advatange in getting contracts….
The contract award comes on the heels of a protracted and bitter dispute over a Pentagon contract, also worth up to $10 billion, which was given to Microsoft before getting bogged down in lawsuits and ultimately scrapped. If the NSA can fight through an often bruising bid protest process, the new contract could extend Amazon’s lead in the fast-growing cloud computing market where rivals are gaining on it.
The NSA has offered few details about the purpose of the contract. An NSA spokesman said the agency had awarded a contract for “cloud computing support services,” but declined to elaborate or specify who won it. “The agency will respond to the protest in accordance with appropriate federal regulations,” the spokesman said…
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The Defense Department recently pulled the plug on a different long-planned cloud computing award after years of bid protests and dueling allegations of corruption. That contract, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI for short, was given to Microsoft shortly after former president Donald Trump took interest in the procurement. There are also allegations that Amazon had an unfair advantage due to its relationships with federal officials…
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The NSA award is likely to improve Amazon’s prospects in the insular national security sector, where untold billions in spending from the Pentagon and the intelligence community represent a lucrative growth market.
The e-commerce giant has been making inroads there for years. It got an early foothold in 2013 when it secured a $600 million cloud contract with the CIA. That work accelerated Amazon’s capabilities with respect to handling classified and top secret data, while also allowing other government agencies to access its services….