Microsoft breaks its silence on Amazon's legal push to overturn the $10 billion JEDI cloud contract decision, and says that it won based on its own merits

• Microsoft made its first public comment on Amazon's legal push to overturn the results of the bid for JEDI, a $10 billion cloud contract with the Pentagon. Microsoft officially won the deal in October.
• Amazon is challenging the decision in the US Court of Federal Claims and, in documents made public on Monday, said President Donald Trump led "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" to ensure the company didn't get the contract, in order to harm CEO Jeff Bezos, his "perceived political enemy."
• Since the decision, Amazon has repeatedly touted what it believes is its own "technical superiority" over Microsoft.
• Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives believes Microsoft won based on its technology and lobbying efforts, and on Monday said Amazon's lawsuit is just "noise" that won't affect Microsoft's win of the contract.
• Click here to read more stories on BI Prime

Microsoft has finally broken its silence about Amazon's lawsuit challenging the company's victory in a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, saying the bidding process was fair and Microsoft won on its own merits.

"We have confidence in the qualified staff at the Department of Defense, and we believe the facts will show they ran a detailed, thorough and fair process in determining the needs of the warfighter were best met by Microsoft," a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. "We've worked hard to continually innovate over the past two years to create better, differentiated offerings for our customer."

The Department of Defense on October 25 selected Microsoft for the controversial contract known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, contract worth as much as $10 billion over the next decade to move the agency's sensitive data to the cloud.

Amazon is challenging the decision in the US Court of Federal Claims and, in documents made public on Monday, said President Donald Trump led "repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks" to ensure the company didn't get the contract, in order to harm CEO Jeff Bezos, his "perceived political enemy."

Amazon was considered by some to be a shoo-in for the contract because of the company's market-dominant position and high security clearance compared to competitors including Microsoft.

Since the decision, Amazon has repeatedly touted what it believes is its own "technical superiority" over Microsoft, including in a meeting with employees last month during which AWS CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon's technology is at least two years ahead of Microsoft, according to a recording obtained by Business Insider,

Not all analysts agree. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives believes Microsoft won based on its technology and lobbying, and on Monday said Amazon's lawsuit is just "noise" that won't affect Microsoft's win of the contract.