The CEO of Amazon Web Services told employees that its cloud is '24 months ahead of Microsoft in functionality and maturity'
- Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy reportedly told employees its cloud is 24 months ahead of Microsoft's, "in functionality and maturity."
- Jassy's comments came as he informed employees about the company's plans to challenge Microsoft's win of JEDI, a contentious $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon, according to a report from Federal Times.
- The bidding process was contentious and included involvement from tech titans such as Oracle and even politicians including President Donald Trump, who has publicly feuded with Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
- Jassy said the political aspect made the process unfair: "When you have a sitting president who's willing to publicly show his disdain for a company and the leader of a company, it's very difficult for government agencies including the DoD to make an objective decision without fear of reprisal," Jassy said.
- Experts say Amazon might have a case if it could prove political interference unfairly affected the outcome of the bidding process - particularly given that an upcoming book makes the claim that President Donald Trump ordered former Defense Secretary James Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of the JEDI contract.
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Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy reportedly told employees at an all-hands meeting on Thursday that the Seattle-based company's cloud business is two years ahead of competitor Microsoft's.
"If you do any thorough, apples-to-apples, objective comparison of AWS versus Microsoft you don't come out deciding that they're comparable platforms," he said, according to a report from Federal Times, which said it obtained a video of the meeting. "Most of our customers will tell us that we're about 24 months ahead of Microsoft in functionality and maturity."
Jassy's comments came as the executive was informing employees about the company's plans to challenge Microsoft's win of the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) project, a contentious $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon.
AWS has started the process to protest that decision in the US Court of Federal Claims, citing "unmistakable bias."
"AWS is uniquely experienced and qualified to provide the critical technology the U.S. military needs, and remains committed to supporting the DoD's modernization efforts," an AWS spokesperson said in a prepared statement. "We also believe it's critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence. Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias- and it's important that these matters be examined and rectified."
Microsoft was selected Oct. 25 for the controversial JEDI deal, which will help move the Department of Defense's sensitive data to the cloud. It's worth as much as $10 billion over a 10-year span.
The bidding process was contentious and included involvement from tech titans such as Oracle and politicians up to and including President Donald Trump, who has publicly feuded with Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
Jassy told employees the process was unfair because of political interference.
"When you have a sitting president who's willing to publicly show his disdain for a company and the leader of a company, it's very difficult for government agencies including the DoD to make an objective decision without fear of reprisal," Jassy said, according to the report.
Experts say Amazon might have a case if it could prove political interference unfairly affected the outcome of the bidding process - particularly given that an upcoming book makes the claim that President Donald Trump ordered former Defense Secretary James Mattis to "screw Amazon" out of the JEDI contract.
But it's no sure thing. Amazon would not only have to prove political pressure was applied to the process but also that the pressure actually affected the outcome. Experts previously told Business Insider that Microsoft likely won the JEDI deal on its own merits as a cloud heavyweight.