DoD Eyes JEDI Cloud Contract Award in August Amid Bidding Process Concerns

The Department of Defense plans to award the potential $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud procurement contract, which faces a court challenge and is under scrutiny by lawmakers over the bidding process, by the end of August, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are the final two contenders for the JEDI contract, which has drawn complaints from IBM and Oracle. 

According to DoD emails obtained by the Journal, Amazon executives met with Pentagon officials prior to the announcement and release of the solicitation for the cloud contract. AWS has “received no preferential treatment in any procurement as a result of any meetings, one-on-one or otherwise, with DoD officials,” said a spokesman for parent company Amazon.

Elissa Smith, a spokeswoman for DoD, said the bidding process for the JEDI contract is “open, transparent and full” and that no one in the defense secretary’s office took part in drafting the request for proposals for the program.