[HN Gopher] Judge Halts Work on Microsoft's JEDI Contract in Vic...
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Judge Halts Work on Microsoft's JEDI Contract in Victory for Amazon
Author : jbegley
Score : 114 points
Date : 2020-02-13 19:46 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| I think Amazon will lose this case. It will be impossible to
| prove that Donald Trump's public attacks on Jeff Bezos influenced
| the decision of the Department of Defense to award the JEDI
| contract to Microsoft. Amazon wants to depose Donald Trump,
| SecDef Mark Esper, and former SecDef James Mattis. I don't see
| Donald Trump willingly testifying to a court under oath. If Esper
| and Mattis have to testify, they will say that the contract was
| awarded fairly and based on a neutral and thorough review of both
| proposals, and that Microsoft's offer fulfilled the needs of the
| DoD better. The SecDef, being the most important individual in
| the DoD, is in the best position to determine the department's
| needs. While this doesn't mean that corruption of the decision
| making process is impossible, these contracts have a paper trail
| and review/counter-review processes by a multitude of procurement
| officers and committees, and a federal judge unilaterally
| deciding the winners of military contracts would set a terrible
| precedent. At worst the contract could be voided and the
| competition restarted, but the final decision would most likely
| be the same.
| eganist wrote:
| > At worst the contract could be voided and the competition
| restarted, but the final decision would most likely be the
| same.
|
| Assuming Trump interfered, a rebid is the best possible
| outcome. It took well over a year for that bid to be completed,
| meaning by the time this matter is adjudicated, we'll know
| whether or not Trump is on his way to a second term.
|
| And if not, then there's no way the JEDI contract re-bid will
| be completed before he's out on Jan 20, 2021.
| fooey wrote:
| There's no assumption needed, he directly and publically
| interfered.
|
| Trump specifically ordered DoD to review the fundamental deal
| to make sure it didn't favor Amazon.
| eganist wrote:
| Well since you're drawing out my personal politics: I
| agree, personally. I'm also among a population his team
| have indicated are unwelcome, but I'm trying to give some
| amount of respect to the justice system even if I feel he
| doesn't.
|
| Now with that aside, please keep the absolutist politics
| off of Hackernews. It's the last good sanctuary we have
| from what the rest of the internet has devolved into. There
| are plenty of people drawn into the administration's orbit
| who still have good ideas about product development which
| I'd like to learn.
| [deleted]
| wyxuan wrote:
| Agreed. They might be able to turn up some emails discussing
| Trump's pressure but I think those emails (unless truly
| damning)won't be able to meet the bar.
| DannyB2 wrote:
| Nothing, no matter how bad, can overcome the Barr.
| m0zg wrote:
| >> Microsoft's offer fulfilled the needs of the DoD better
|
| Which it's not even up for debate that it did. The Pentagon
| already runs a ton of Microsoft software - something Amazon has
| no ability to properly support at this scale.
| fooey wrote:
| It's a cloud computing contract, not for desktop services.
|
| If anything, the terms of the contract were specifically
| written with features only Amazon can provide, and it was
| assume it would go to them until Trump cronies at Oracle got
| his ear.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Why would Amazon need to support Microsoft software? The
| contract is to build out cloud infrastructure, not every
| single product and service and application that might run on
| it. _No_ vendor could do that.
|
| If the DoD currently has MS systems on traditional
| infrastructure that they'd like to migrate to the JEDI cloud,
| there's no reason those couldn't continue to be supported by
| MS, just as the many other systems that run on the new cloud
| infrastructure will be supported by their own vendors. I no
| more expect Amazon to support every piece of software I run
| on their services than I would expect my appliance repairman
| to assist with my Hello Fresh cooking (if I had a
| subscription) just because they "support" my oven.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The various government agencies already have contracts for
| Microsoft software support. The JEDI contract is for cloud
| infrastructure.
| mrgordon wrote:
| Of course it's up for debate. Everyone thought Amazon would
| win the contract because they had such a lead in cloud
| services until Trump got involved as part of his personal
| vendetta with Bezos for the Washington Post
| notyourday wrote:
| It was up for debate only among people who think "cloud" is
| web apps written in NodeJS, Go and Python rather than the
| old boring applications that used to be ran locally.
| Microsoft and Oracle are gigantic specialized vendors in
| that space. "Cloud" part is a commodity.
| m0zg wrote:
| >> Everyone thought
|
| Citation needed. I didn't think that for a minute. If
| anything MS was the only sane choice here, for reasons I
| wrote of above.
|
| >> Trump got involved
|
| Citation needed.
| fooey wrote:
| > when JEDI was issued, on the day Congress recessed for
| the summer, the deal appeared to be rigged in favor of a
| single provider: Amazon. According to insiders familiar
| with the 1,375-page request for proposal, the language
| contains a host of technical stipulations that only
| Amazon can meet
|
| https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/has-bezos-become-
| mor...
| ineedasername wrote:
| >>Citation Needed (Everyone Thought) [0][1][2]
|
| Oracle certainly thought Amazon was the front runner,
| unfairly so, to the point that they began a lawsuit prior
| to all this current mess.
|
| >>Citation Needed (Trump Got involved) [3][4]
|
| When the President expresses a desire to "screw" over a
| potential vendor, that's getting involved.
|
| [0] https://apnews.com/3f36de42be3d45b7bee0d2c5febd2557
|
| [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/04/11/o
| racle-p...
|
| [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-amazon-is-
| heavily-...
|
| [3]https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/09/amazon-blames-trump-
| for-losi...
|
| [4] https://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/trump-mulls-
| stepping-i...
| zaroth wrote:
| Your [3] is just a story reporting this story, citing
| nothing but Amazon's complaint. Your [4] quotes Trump
| saying lots of companies are complaining, and an internal
| ethics investigation at the DoD which turned up someone
| working on the contract who worked at AWS;
|
| > _The Pentagon found potential ethical violations by a
| former Amazon Web Services employee who had worked on
| JEDI during a stint at the Defense Department, according
| to a New York Times story. Those potential violations
| were referred to Office of Inspector General for further
| investigation._
| tssva wrote:
| The judge would not decide who would win the contract. The
| judge would determine if the contract needs to be re-competed.
| This has happened many times with DoD contracts and nothing
| about the judge deciding it needs to be would be precedent
| setting.
|
| Asking for Trump to be deposed is the smartest thing Amazon has
| done in this case. Of course he will refuse which will lead to
| an extended court battle to try to force him to be. This will
| extend the case passed the election and at that point a
| different administration may decide themselves to scrap the
| contract award and re-compete it.
| ticmasta wrote:
| Which itself will likely cause a payout to MS. Not $10B but
| I'd bet substantial...
| ineedasername wrote:
| I think it will hinge on what, if any, communications took
| place between the administration and the DoD. If there were
| written communications, those will be discoverable during the
| lead up to a trial. Conversations that took below the SecDef
| level where (if) personnel felt pressured to skew things a
| certain way could also come out.
|
| I don't think people watching this case would tend to thing the
| courts would award the contract to Amazon though. That is very
| much outside the scope of this case, and does not appear to be
| what Amazon is seeking. The case hinged on the more narrow
| question of whether the process followed was proper. Even apart
| from first-hand testimony on pressure, this can be determined
| in part from the timing and changes to requirements. If the
| requirements were changed at the last minute to include things
| that only Microsoft, by definition, could provide, then it's a
| problem for the DoD. For example, an 11th hour change to
| stipulate "selected contractor must currently offer per-minute
| billing on services" could easily be interpreted as unduly
| biased towards MS. A stipulation saying "Vendor branding of
| products must reference a shade of blue" (Azure) then that
| would be a bit of a smoking gun. I mean sure, a ridiculous
| example, but you see what I mean. And, being a civil case, the
| burden of proof is not "reasonable doubt", but the much lesser
| "preponderance of evidence" threshold.
| m0zg wrote:
| How about: "Vendor must be able to quicky fix bugs in
| Microsoft software"? Would that be "undue" or not? Seems like
| a desirable capability for a government entity that runs on
| Microsoft software.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| That's not inherently disqualifying AMZN, they can contract
| MSFT for that.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Why would Microsoft have to stop providing any such support
| they currently give to the DoD? Do you think Dell or HP or
| whoever they get servers from does this sort of thing
| instead of MS?
|
| And why do you seem to think that the infrastructure vendor
| would be required to support the code base of any & all
| software that runs on it? This isn't a contract for
| everything that will run in their cloud. _This is an
| infrastructure contract_.
| williesleg wrote:
| Activist judge again.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Well there's at least one positive outcome from this whole
| debacle so far with Oracle's lawsuit being heavily undercut by
| the award to MS.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| short MS
| kevas wrote:
| Stop. Full stop...
|
| This contract would add about $250m in additional each quarter.
| Their last Q's revenue was somewhere in the neighborhood of
| $33b.
|
| Just stop with your nonsense.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I guess I should have put in an /s forgot this isn't wsb
| orf wrote:
| Obviously getting the JEDI contract has implications for
| Azure/Microsoft far, far beyond the monetary value of the
| contract itself.
| kerng wrote:
| Agreed, and the majority of the positive press and Azure
| being seen as being a more then viable alternative has
| already been done.
|
| AWS won't be able to revert that change in public
| perception that Azure has grown up.
|
| That's also the reason I don't understand Amazon fighting
| the decision, because it just makes them look immature now.
| Better to move on and focus on providing customer value,
| keep innovating and build better tech.
|
| And its very likely MS will win this and get another ego
| boost over AWS.
| vkaku wrote:
| Microsoft will win this, is what my gut feeling says. And Amazon
| may be forced to pay compensation by the people in the process.
|
| How about they actually prove they can focus on privacy and be a
| good implementor for the government? I doubt if they will ever do
| that. That's the concern.
| keanzu wrote:
| "In December, Amazon filed a challenge to the deal in federal
| court, saying that Mr. Trump used "improper pressure" on the
| Pentagon at its expense."
|
| "Microsoft said Amazon "only provided the speculation of bias,
| with nothing approaching the 'hard facts' necessary" to demand
| them."
|
| He may have applied improper pressure but I wasn't able to find
| where they presented any evidence to support this accusation. Was
| there any evidence or is the point of the court process to get
| some?
| [deleted]
| jdm2212 wrote:
| This lawsuit is an effort to get hard evidence. This is just an
| injunction while they sort out how to go forward and what
| paperwork/depositions to grant Amazon.
| threeseed wrote:
| Seems a bit pointless.
|
| Even if Amazon wins there will likely be a re-bid process. At
| which point they will simply select Microsoft again. As we've
| seen with the DOJ Trump can exert significant influence without
| having to actually tell them what to do.
| fooey wrote:
| The original reporting on JEDI was pretty much that it was
| written specifically with Amazon in mind, and that the RFP was
| a formality.
|
| Someone at Oracle with access with Trump brought it to his
| attention, and Trump personally intervened, ordering DoD to
| ensure Amazon was not favored for the contract.
| RobRivera wrote:
| Sometimes all a competitor needs is to impact competitor
| schedules to overtake market share.
| mayneack wrote:
| If Trump is really the only thing giving the contract to
| Microsoft, rebidding might land in 2021 at which point there's
| some chance Trump isn't in a position to exert influence.
| jahlove wrote:
| These large proposals can take many years to award. There could
| very likely be a new administration by that time.
|
| See the KC-X tanker program as an example:
|
| 01/2007 - RFP comes out
|
| 02/2008 - Northrop Grumman wins
|
| 03/2008 - Boeing successfully protests
|
| 08/2008 - Revised RFP comes out, then cancelled
|
| 09/2009 - Third RFP comes out
|
| 02/2011 - Boeing wins
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X#Initial_competition
| clSTophEjUdRanu wrote:
| My hunch is that Amazon is desperate for this because of looming
| regulations. We regularly see companies that cozy up to the
| government get special treatment.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| "On Thursday, Judge Campbell-Smith also required that Amazon pay
| a $42 million deposit that will be held by the court in case it
| later determines that the injunction was wrongfully issued and
| that Microsoft is owed damages."
|
| I know $42MM is pocket change to these companies but this goes a
| long ways toward removing my perception of the judge being
| biased.
| tomohawk wrote:
| It's a fig leaf.
|
| It's not about the judge being biased, but about amazon really
| having nothing to lose compared to what they could gain, and
| swinging for the fences. It's also about the _next_ contract.
|
| They're unlikely to prevail, and have already, through their
| past actions, turned a lot of DoD people against them. If they
| had performed better with their previous contracts, they would
| likely have won this.
| MaupitiBlue wrote:
| Not sure where the 42 came from, but requiring the party
| seeking an injunction to post a bond is pretty standard on a
| case like this. I would read absolutely nothing into it.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| Why would you have that perception at all?
| keanzu wrote:
| > my perception of the judge being biased.
|
| That perception was possibly influenced by the HN title "Siding
| with Amazon" vs the title the NY Times used "Judge Halts Work
| on Microsoft's JEDI Contract in Victory for Amazon". At no
| point in the article do the words "sides" or "siding" appear.
|
| Edit: The HN title has been changed since I wrote this.
| XMPPwocky wrote:
| https://twitter.com/nyt_diff/status/1228059729391476736
|
| The NYT changed their headline after publication.
| mugwort13 wrote:
| Typical
| crmrc114 wrote:
| The pissing contest between Jeff and Larry (AWS and Oracle) has
| only resulted in MS getting Oracle + Azure. That may not seem
| like much, but to most enterprise and government bodies that is a
| huge + on the MS side is it not?
|
| Also not mentioned here AWS already has GovCloud- there are a
| number of agencies both federal and state that use AWS. Its not
| like this contract is the _only_ contract there is to win. Its
| just a big one. Jeff is a pretty damn sore loser.
| fooey wrote:
| Oracle is a McGuffin, they're only mentioned at all in this
| drama as an excuse for Trump to interfere. They were never any
| kind of contender for the contract.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| The president told the secretary of defense to "screw" one
| vendor in a competition for a $10B contract because of personal
| biases unrelated to the contract. In any normal time, that
| would be an administration ending scandal. Right now, it hardly
| rates, but on an absolute scale it's still a big deal and
| completely justifies this lawsuit.
| balls187 wrote:
| > Right now, it hardly rates
|
| This is an underrated commentary.
|
| I'm continually amazed at what transpires in the public
| forum, leading me to believe that the US Government has been
| corrupt for quite some time, but never out in the open.
|
| Or, it could be like this https://youtu.be/aI0euMFAWF8
| unlinked_dll wrote:
| Not to be too cynical, but if we started investigating every
| DoD contract where personal biases decided who won and who
| lost... the military industrial complex would probably
| crumble overnight.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Perhaps, but they should meet some minimal bar of effort to
| avoid the appearance of impropriety. And on contracts of
| this size, I would expect the standard of fairness to be
| higher.
| dnautics wrote:
| > they should meet some minimal bar of effort to avoid
| the appearance of impropriety
|
| why not just call a spade a spade?
| lostcolony wrote:
| This isn't that though. This isn't every individual's
| personal bias; this is a publicly declared bias by the
| commander in chief. A little different.
| balls187 wrote:
| It's not even bias.
|
| It's a __vendetta __
| outside1234 wrote:
| There is no evidence that he actually did this. People have
| speculated that he might have and he clearly doesn't like
| Bezos, but that is not proof.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/26/politics/amazon-donald-
| trump-...
|
| Was sourced in Mattis's biography, written by a _" former
| Mattis speechwriter and communications director"_. That is
| absolutely evidence. Now, proving it simply involves this
| lawsuit and then deposing Mattis to confirm the claim.
| awb wrote:
| > The president told the secretary of defense to "screw" one
| vendor in a competition for a $10B contract because of
| personal biases unrelated to the contract.
|
| On Twitter it sounds like Trump has animosity for Bezos, but
| is there evidence Trump was involved in the process or the
| process was biased?
| ticmasta wrote:
| Based on character it would seem the last thing Trump would
| have the attention span for would be messing with
| government IT contracts. He would quickly loose interest
| and flip the TV to Fox News...
| dude3 wrote:
| Should be a factor. Guy involved in the JEDI decision was
| pursuing a job at Amazon.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2019/06/03/amazon-defense-departmen...
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