Pentagon Awards $10 Billion Contract To Microsoft Over Front-Runner Amazon

The Pentagon awarded a $10 billion, 10-year contract to Microsoft over Amazon on Friday, ending a heavily scrutinized battle over which tech giant would largely manage the military's cloud computing services.

The massive contract — known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, cloud contract — was widely expected to be awarded to Amazon Web Services, or AWS, which also manages the cloud computing services for the Central Intelligence Agency.

"We're surprised about this conclusion. AWS is the clear leader in cloud computing, and a detailed assessment purely on the comparative offerings clearly lead to a different conclusion," an AWS spokesperson told NPR in a statement.

Amazon's potential procurement of the contract was met with heavy criticism by other competitors, Republicans in Congress and eventually by President Trump, who has long been engaged in a largely one-sided feud with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.