Amazon today won a key court ruling over IBM in its bid to secure a $600 million contract to provide cloud-computing services to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
The online docket from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims indicates that Judge Thomas Wheeler ruled in Amazon’s favor on its objections to the Government Accountability Office’s decision to reopen the CIA contract for bidding after it was originally won by Amazon Web Services.
The written text of the opinion hasn’t yet been made public, but IBM has already signaled plans to appeal, according to Bloomberg News and the FCW federal technology news site.
If the decision stands, it’s an important turn of events for Amazon in the competition to provide secure cloud computing services to government agencies. Earlier today, Microsoft announced its own government cloud service.
In an earlier court filing in the case, Amazon wrote, “The GAO decision contravenes well-established precedent regarding timeliness, standing, and prejudice, ignores several critical defenses entirely, and infringes on the Agency’s substantial discretion to design and conduct procurements.”
