By Debbie Gregory

Microsoft has strongly defended its work with the U.S. military, in response to a group identifying itself as “Employees of Microsoft” who want the tech giant to forego bids on the Pentagon’s $10 billion cloud procurement.

Microsoft President Brad Smith has responded, saying that Microsoft is proud of its long history of technology contracts with the Department of Defense, and will continue working to make sure the military has “access to the nation’s best technology, including from Microsoft.”

Smith added that Microsoft employees who want to switch teams can apply for other open jobs within the company, according to a blog article he wrote.

“We want the people of this country, and especially the people who serve this country, to know that we at Microsoft have their back,” he wrote. “They will have access to the best technology that we create.”

Microsoft also pledged to “engage as a company in the public dialogue” with the Defense Department and policymakers about ethical issues surrounding artificial intelligence, including autonomous weapons. By working with the military and government, Microsoft can be more directly involved in these ethics conversations, Smith wrote.

The opposition from the Microsoft employee group is just the latest episode in an ongoing ethical crisis within the U.S. technology industry.

Earlier this year, Google’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to Project Maven cost the company dozens of employees, who resigned in mass protest.

Additionally, Microsoft faced internal furor last spring and early summer over their contractual connections to ICE, as the agency was embroiled in the controversial separation and detainment of migrant children at the border.

Amazon has also faced criticism from employees and the American Civil Liberties Union over the marketing of its facial-recognition software, Rekognition, to law enforcement agencies.

The concept of lethal Artificial Intelligence is just one area where hundreds of tech workers are trying to influence corporate behavior and ethics by signing a pledge not to work on lethal autonomous weapons.

By Debbie Gregory.

The biggest cloud companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, had all been jockeying for bidding position for the winner-take-all Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract. IMB proactively filed a pre-award bid protest with the Government Accountability Office just days before final bids for the lucrative but controversial contract were due.

The contract was ultimately awarded to Microsoft Azure. Oracle Corp had also filed a protest against the Pentagon’s “winner-take-all” cloud computing contract, citing that it restricts the field of competition.

Defense Department officials said in early March that the $10 billion, 10-year contract would be bid out to a single cloud provider, arguing that using more than one provider would add needless complexity.

“We’ve never built an enterprise cloud,” said Dana Deasy, the Pentagon chief information officer overseeing the process. “Starting with a number of firms while at the same time trying to build out an enterprise capability just simply did not make sense.”

“Throughout the year-long JEDI saga, countless concerns have been raised that this solicitation is aimed at a specific vendor,” said Sam Gordy, general manager of IBM U.S. Federal. “At no point have steps been taken to alleviate those concerns.”

The Jedi project involves moving massive amounts of Defense Department data to a commercially operated cloud system. The JEDI cloud is expected to absorb some of the Pentagon’s existing efforts and is considered a “pathfinder” that the Defense Department will build upon for decades.

During this process, at least nine companies had coordinated their opposition in Washington to the government awarding the contract to a single provider.

The latest legal action follows a months-long coordinated lobbying campaign in Washington from IBM and other tech companies to encourage the Defense Department to change its procurement strategy. Whether it will work remains to be seen.

By Debbie Gregory.

Microsoft is partnering with the U.S. Government in the journey to the cloud.

Microsoft officials announced that the company had achieved the required security levels to host secret U.S. military and intelligence data on its cloud computer network, Azure Government.

Azure Government was the first government-only cloud to be awarded Information Impact Level 5 DoD Provisional Authorization by the Defense Information Systems Agency. It delivers a physically isolated cloud that is DoD Impact Level 5-ready for infrastructure, platform, and productivity services serving every branch of the military and the defense agencies the greatest number L5 services in the market.

“We’re taking our public cloud Azure and sending our FedRamp moderate coverage to cover 50 of those services,” said Julia White, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure, referring to cybersecurity framework for cloud hosting for government. “By the end of the calendar year, those 50 services will have FedRamp high certification.”

Azure Government Secret is meant to provide multi-tenant cloud infrastructure and cloud capabilities to U.S. Federal Civilian, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and U.S. Government partners working within Secret enclaves.

The biggest cloud companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle, all have been jockeying for bidding position for the winner-take-all Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract.

Google has dropped out of the race for the Department of Defense’s $10 billion, 10-year cloud contract, citing an inability to meet the security levels required and because they could not be “assured that it would align with our AI Principles,” according to a Google spokesperson.

Whatever company they choose to fill this contract, this is about modernizing their computing infrastructure and their combat forces for a world of the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence and big data analysis, while consolidating some of their older infrastructure.

Google’s abdication leaves Amazon and Microsoft as the two most likely contenders for the JEDI contract.