It was rumored back in March that Amazon had been awarded a $600 million contract by the CIA to develop a cloud computing infrastructure for the clandestine agency. It is believed that this new infrastructure will cut costs for the CIA as it looks to build a new way to handle enormous amounts of data efficiently. When Amazon was named as the provider, IBM moved the court to reopen bidding for the contract. IBM had concerns on the process through which the contract had been awarded to Amazon, it believed that the prices were not properly evaluated and that a contract requirement had been waived for Amazon. The effort to reopen bidding has been squashed by Amazon in court.
The hammer was laid down by Judge Thomas Wheeler of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington. IBM is obviously not happy. The company says in a statement that it is “disappointed” with the ruling made by the court and that it plans to file an appeal against this decision. IBM goes on to say that in light of current times this decision is “especially inappropriate,” adding that IBM’s bid was superior in a number of ways while also being “substantially more cost-effective.” Amazon is yet to comment on this ruling, but it seems to be far from a victory, given that IBM is showing no signs of backing off any time soon.