Amazon joins DOD in defense of JEDI procurement

Amazon Web Services has joined the fight over the JEDI cloud computing solicitation on the side of the Defense Department in the latter's court battle with Oracle Corp.

This new development comes in the wake of Oracle's loss of its pre-award protest to the Government Accountability Office, from which the company has now taken its cause to the Court of Federal Claims.

AWS requested to be a “defendant-intervenor" and Senior Judge Eric Bruggink granted that motion Wednesday, according to court filings.

AWS' filing sets out several reasons why it should also be considered a defendant in the case:

• Oracle is making claims that there are potential conflicts of interest involving AWS.

• As a bidder for JEDI, AWS has an economic interest in the outcome of the case.

• AWS also has interests in the case that cannot be adequately represented by the government.

• There are other interests such as AWS’ reputation that the government has no incentive to defend.

As a defendant, AWS will participate in briefings and other court hearings.

The government didn’t oppose AWS’ inclusion as a defendant-intervenor. Oracle hadn’t responded to the request, according to court filings.

In addition to AWS and Oracle, IBM and Microsoft also are bidding on the JEDI contract. Theoretically, those two companies could request to be named defendant-intervenors, given they also have an interest in the court’s decision because they are bidders.

IBM did not respond to a request for comment.

A Microsoft spokesman sent the following statement:

Microsoft has not been involved in JEDI protests or lawsuits past or present. We submitted our bid for JEDI in October. We are confident in the capabilities of the Microsoft Azure platform to best meet the requirements of the Department of Defense General Purpose cloud.