Published via Inbox: 2013-06-04 20:51:22
When a rival gets their hands on a lucrative government contract, it's no surprise when a competitor files to block the move. They want the business themselves.IBM has done exactly that, according to reports, over a $600 million cloud project that will last 10 years between Amazon and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
My Two Cents
Nice to see IBM showing the love. Amazon's AWS group wins a huge contract (that nobody is talking about publicly) and IBM protests the contract. IBM's wants in on the action!! No kidding. Haven't outsiders been complaining about IBM's preferential relationship with the US Gov't for years. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, IBM doesn't like it so much.
Outside of the spat between IBM, Amazon's AWS and the US Government (and more specifically a secretive 3-letter agency: the CIA), this protest by IBM could get interesting because Amazon's AWS group is the clear leader in technical cloud leadership, pure cloud size and also cloud-based gross revenues, but also because Amazon's AWS group is a proprietary Cloud OS, where IBM used to have their own cloud (and not a very advanced one compared to AWS) and now relies on an IBM-flavored OpenStack powered cloud. Normally OpenStack wouldn't be able to withstand a direct confrontation with Amazon (at least for now), but with IBM in the fight, OpenStack AND IBM makes it a fight worth watching. The winner of this fight and still world champion of the cloud division is Amazon's AWS (for now)!
Throw into the mix that this is the CIA, a 10-year plan and $600 mm, IBM has the muscle to delay the process and disrupt Amazon's AWS march forward. From OpenStack's perspective, it's nice to have IBM as a Platinum Member and married to the success of OpenStack. Way too early to call this one, but put your chips on Amazon's AWS locking this contract down and moving forward fast and furious.
