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Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios
Microsoft secured a $10 billion cloud computing contract from the Pentagon on Friday, CNBC reports, beating competitors like Amazon to a lucrative 10-year contract.
Why it matters, via Axios' Ina Fried: This giant deal has been a hard fought battle, as Oracle and IBM previously held hopes they could win the cloud computing prize.
Background: A dozen GOP members of Congress sent President Trump a letter in July urging him to delay the Pentagon's plan to award its Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract to a single company.
Our thought bubble, via Axios' Scott Rosenberg: The president's outspoken criticism of Amazon and its founder put the Pentagon in a tough place however the choice came down. If the government went with Amazon, it might have raised Trump's ire, but now that it is rejecting the company, it will inevitably be accused of politicizing the choice.
What they're saying:
“We’re surprised about this conclusion. AWS is the clear leader in cloud computing, and a detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings clearly lead to a different conclusion. We remain deeply committed to continuing to innovate for the new digital battlefield where security, efficiency, resiliency, and scalability of resources can be the difference between success and failure.”— Amazon Web Services statement to Axios
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