Vendors have until Friday to place a bid, but considering the growing concern around the project, it is unlikely Microsoft will make a move. Google decided to not bid, while IBM has today announced it has filed a bid protest against JEDI. While the Pentagon program could be worth a lot to a company over 10 years, the bid process has raised questions. Oracle has already filed a protest and now IBM is doing the same. The company questions the Pentagon’s need for a “single-cloud” for JEDI. IBM says demanding to work with just a single vendor, the Pentagon is restricting competition: “JEDI’s primary flaw lies in mandating a single cloud environment for up to 10 years,” Sam Gordy, IBM’s US Federal general manager, said in a blogpost. Gordy describes the single-cloud requirements are concerning because they “mirror one vendor’s internal processes” or “unnecessarily mandate certain capabilities”. “Such rigid requirements serve only one purpose: to arbitrarily narrow the field of bidders,” he adds. “Throughout the year-long JEDI saga, countless concerns have been raised that this solicitation is aimed at a specific vendor. At no point have steps been taken to alleviate those concerns.”
Multi-Vendor Approach
However, many major companies, Microsoft included, have pushed for a multi-vendor program. While Google dropped out of bidding this week, it was not through a moral decision. The company simply lacked the certifications required to host some of the classified date.
