Oracle sues U.S. government for lawsuit JEDI contract

Oracle filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government last week. The company claims that the Pentagon JEDI contract is unfair and illegal. That’s what TechCrunch reports.

The JEDI contract is a ten-year $10 billion contract for a company that is helping the Pentagon move to the cloud. Only one provider can win the contract. Oracle had already filed a complaint about this. The company believes – as do several other cloud providers – that there should be multiple parties.

So now there’s a lawsuit for the same problem. However, the complaint was rejected by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). “The Ministry of Defence’s decision to select a single provider to get these cloud services is consistent with the applicable rules, as the authority has decided that this is best for the government for various reasons, such as national security, as permitted by law.

However, Oracle has decided to try again..: “The tech industry is innovating at an unprecedented rate around a next generation cloud and the JEDI contract means that the Ministry of Defense will be stuck in an outdated cloud for the next ten years or more, as it now looks,” says the company. According to the company, choosing a provider is also something that goes against the multi-cloud strategy of the industry.

Not for ten years

The process surrounding the JEDI contract is about determining the cloud strategy for the Ministry of Defence for the next ten years. However, there are several times when the ministry can leave. This is possible after two years. There are also two options after three years and a last option after two years. As a result, there is a possibility that the ten years will not be filled.

Oracle has been complaining for months because it thinks that the contract has been drawn up to attract the leader of the industry, AWS. IBM filed a similar complaint in October. This complaint and the support of other interested parties, such as Google and Microsoft, are cited in the court case. Google no longer participates in the bidding on the contract.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.