Microsoft Defends Bid for $10B Pentagon Cloud Contract Amid Criticism Over Government Use of Technology (geekwire.com) 68
Microsoft said Friday it will not pull out of the competition for a $10 billion cloud contract for the Department of Defense, despite growing concerns about private companies selling new technologies to the federal government. From a report: The Redmond, Wash., company defended its position in a blog post Friday, claiming that technologists should be involved in government adoption of new innovations to ensure they are not misused. Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in the post that "to withdraw from this market is to reduce our opportunity to engage in the public debate about how new technologies can best be used in a responsible way." He decided to share publicly sentiments that he and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed at a monthly Q&A with employees Thursday. "We want the people of this country and especially the people who serve this country to know that we at Microsoft have their back," Smith wrote. "They will have access to the best technology that we create." Smith's defense comes days after an unspecified number of Microsoft employees urged the company to not bid on the Project JEDI.
Further reading: Oracle Trying Hard To Make Sure Pentagon Knows Amazon Isn't the Only Cloud Around; Google Drops Out of Pentagon's $10 Billion Cloud Competition; Jeff Bezos Defends Big Tech Working with Department of Defense.
Further reading: Oracle Trying Hard To Make Sure Pentagon Knows Amazon Isn't the Only Cloud Around; Google Drops Out of Pentagon's $10 Billion Cloud Competition; Jeff Bezos Defends Big Tech Working with Department of Defense.
Hard to argue...Same logic as Google (Score:4, Insightful)
The Redmond, Wash., company defended its position in a blog post Friday, claiming that technologists should be involved in government adoption of new innovations to ensure they are not misused. Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in the post that "to withdraw from this market is to reduce our opportunity to engage in the public debate about how new technologies can best be used in a responsible way."
Hmmm...the same logic Google used to defend jumping into bed with the Chinese government. Sort of hard to argue with that.
Best Tech MS Can Create? (Score:1)
If you want to see the DoD's shady plans get frustrated, inflicting Microsoft on them is better than anything else you could ask for.
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Bet it's still better and more cost effective than government employees could build for their own use.
Think about how bad that is...The DOD certainly has many data centers of its own, but they know MS profit is less than federal employee featherbedding, likely by an order of magnitude or more.
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Not really. You are not figuring in MS screwups. Those will be costly.
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Those would likely be a wash. The consequences of the initial screw ups might be worse on the government side.
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It's not the same cloud as we mortals can reach by going to AWS or Azure.
It's to use their cloud platform to manage datacenters that are not on the regular Internet.
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Shady plans like defending the U.S. Those bastards!!
Translation (Score:2)
"We don't want the government to give all $10 billion to Amazon"
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But you will still pay for it, in so many ways...
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You think anything of "MS quality" is going to be an asset? Have you been asleep the last 30 years?
Security? (Score:2)
Ya, MS has heard of it and wants no part of that mystical religion. The Pentagon can kiss their info goodbye if MS is involved.
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Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot it was an azure Gov't cloud. Well then, that will make it secure.
Use of technology... (Score:3)
"We have been using your software to support the war fighter, I'm thankful to you for your help in enabling us to deliver supplies, defend our troupes and kill the bad guys. I'm sorry if that makes some of you uncomfortable, that that is what the military does, it is our job and we do it as a service to freedom of the nation" -- a actual quote I once heard at a meeting of Mission Planning Software developers.
So, let me ask all you squeamish children of hippies out there a simple question.
Would you rather the U.S. military have the technology or the Chinese?
Someone is going to build it, if anyone every invents it. As a matter of fact the military research arm generally considers itself to be 10 years ahead of the private sector. Remember they have rights to manufacture and use anything that is recorded in patent law, it is just cheaper for them to buy it off the self.
So, exactly what are people protesting? Software companies building software for profit? Technology being used in wars? because, that ship already sailed about 1947.
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If you supply tech that makes it easier to got to war, you become complicit. This requires a bit of thinking to understand it (not a lot), but these are all very smart people can can see the the chain of causality. These are also people that do not want to contribute to making the world a worse place, and that is what wars do. Again requires a bit of actually thinking about it, instead of just regurgitating "patriotic" propaganda and being an useful idiot. And no, nobody is about to invade the US, not even
3 million years too late. Win with minimal causalt (Score:3)
> If you supply tech that makes it easier to got to war, you become complicit.
You're about three million years too late if you're trying to prevent people from starting wars because they don't have the tech.
The tech can help decide a) who wins the war and b) how many causalities there are.
Have you ever studied World War II at all? You've heard of WWII, right? World War 2 was a turning point, because up until then the basic approach to warfare was you'd kill all the guys in the other country. There was
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> If you supply tech that makes it easier to got to war, you become complicit.
You're about three million years too late if you're trying to prevent people from starting wars because they don't have the tech.
Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Here is a hint "make it easier" is something pretty different from "make it possible". I stopped reading there as you clearly have nothing worthwhile to say.
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I'd rather that the Chinese have MS technology, it is the best thing the U.S. could do to set back their military.
People are fine when corporations use it (Score:2)
But the government is a bridge too far? Pull the other one.
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Indeed. Morals, the future of the race, etc. all irrelevant. Of course, not all Americans are like that, but most of those with money and power are. Even some of those with a lot of money (e.g. Buffet, Soros, Cook) seem to be uncomfortable with this.
And the other problem (Score:3)
... is that with that much money on the table, MS will give everything in data and access to its other customers (i.e. basically everybody) to the NSA when they even only hint. Remember that the NSA is military intelligence and belongs to the Pentagon. That is the real problem I see here.
Just checking... (Score:3)
...people do understand that a military IS a necessary thing for a country to have, right?
And that an unprepared, technologically outclassed military invites trouble?
I understand better than most how ridiculous our military-industrial complex is, chasing multi-bajillion dollar white elephants and $1200 coffee cups. But this (nor most of the righteous "how DARE they work for the military!?!?" indignance) doesn't seem to be a protest against wasteful or pork-barrel defense spending, it seems to be directed against ANY defense spending. ...making it particularly ironic when a bunch of zealots at Google threaten to quit over Google working for the Defense Dept of the US, yet seemingly soldier-on building China-compliant reporting, tracking, and filtering engines.
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There is no need for a military since that is only needed to protect a country. A country leads to having borders which are racists. Remove the military remove the hate.
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Oh, maybe you are looking at the 3.5% GDP rise in the last quarter and attributing it to military spending. The WSJ reports it contributed .21% last quarter due to increase defense spending. Mostly that was on stuff that had been ignored during the earlier 8 years. So your military-industrial complex is decimal dust in the scheme of a $20 trillion economy.
IT is the frontier (Score:1)
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Management has a fiduciary responsibility (Score:3)
Government contracts are big business, and the US government spends billions annually on IT hardware, software, and services.
Management has a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. They would need a damn good reason to justify walking away from a $10B DoD contract for cloud services. Some politically correct bullshit rationale isn't going to cut it.
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MS revenues for 2018 will be about $110 Billion. $10 Billion divided over 10 years won't float their boat much. It is more about metastasizing in the U.S. military even further than the crapware they already afflicting DoD with.
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MS revenues for 2018 will be about $110 Billion. $10 Billion divided over 10 years won't float their boat much. It is more about metastasizing in the U.S. military even further than the crapware they already afflicting DoD with.
I think $10B would be a big contract to any vendor. I agree with your other point though. From personal experience I can tell you the up front price on a government contract is a teaser. The bigger bucks come afterwards.
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JEDI? (Score:2)
Who said we are Jedi?
What's the big deal? (Score:2)
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Roll their own (Score:2)