Defense Department spokeswoman Elissa Smith on Thursday announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft are the only two companies that meet the minimum requirements for the U.S. Defense Department’s contract for cloud computing services,after IBM and Oracle have been ruled out. The deal, known as JEDI, will be awarded to one of the two companies in July 2019.
U.S Defense Department eliminated IBM and Oracle from its cloud computing services contract that could be worth as much as $10 billion in the next 10 years. This is a major loss for IBM and Oracle as it would have helped them overtake Amazon and Microsoft in the public cloud market.
However, the deal is only one element in the DOD’s overall mission to modernize information technology as the deal demands multiple clouds from multiple vendors.
The Pentagon has allocated $61.9 million for JEDI in the budget for the 2020 fiscal year.