After Losing A CIA Contract, IBM Wins $1 Billion Cloud Deal From Another Government Agency

IBM has signed a cloud computing deal with the U.S. Department of the Interior worth up to $1 billion over the next 10 years.

IBM will help the DOI move its tech into the cloud by providing cloud storage and Web hosting. It will also host other apps for the DOI, like SAP, according to IBM's press release.

This huge contract is even bigger than the $600 million contract IBM famously lost to Amazon to build a private cloud for the CIA. IBM is still hoping the CIA will change its mind and choose IBM instead.

It's also a much-needed vote of confidence for IBM's cloud computing. IBM is counting on the cloud to become a big growth area and Amazon has no intention of letting IBM walk with all the big, juicy government contracts.

Amazon is already being used by more than 500 government agencies, a company spokesperson told us.

So IBM has been stepping up its cloud game. It bought cloud computing company SoftLayer for about $2 billion June (reportedly outbidding rival EMC to do so), and promised to grow cloud computing revenue to at least $7 billion by 2015. Before signing this contract, IBM said it needs to grow revenue by $3 billion to meet that goal.