Oracle filed suit in federal court last week alleging yet again that the decade-long $10 billion Pentagon JEDI contract with its single-vendor award is unfair and illegal. The complaint, which has been sealed at Oracle’s request, is available in the public record with redactions.
If all of
this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same argument the company used when
it filed a similar complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
last August. The GAO ruled against Oracle last month stating, “…the Defense
Department’s decision to pursue a single-award approach to obtain these cloud
services is consistent with applicable statutes (and regulations) because the
agency reasonably determined that a single-award approach is in the
government’s best interests for various reasons, including national security
concerns, as the statute allows.”
That hasn’t
stopped Oracle from trying one more time, this time filing suit in the United
States Court of Federal Claims this week, alleging pretty much the same thing
it did with the GAO, that the process was unfair and violated federal procurement
law.
Oracle
Senior Vice President Ken Glueck reiterated this point in a statement to
TechCrunch. “The technology industry is innovating around next generation cloud
at an unprecedented pace and JEDI as currently envisioned virtually assures DoD
will be locked into legacy cloud for a decade or more. The single-award
approach is contrary to well established procurement requirements and is out of
sync with industry’s multi-cloud strategy, which promotes constant competition,
fosters rapid innovation and lowers prices,” he said, echoing the language in
the complaint.
The JEDI
contract process is about determining the cloud strategy for the Department of
Defense for the next decade, but it’s important to point out that even though
it is framed as a 10-year contract, it has been designed with several opt-out
points for DOD with an initial two-year option, two three-year options and a
final two-year option, leaving open the possibility it might never go the full
10 years.
Oracle has
complained for months that it believes the contract has been written to favor
the industry leader, Amazon Web Services. Company co-CEO Safra Catz even
complained directly to the president in April, before the RFP process even
started. IBM filed a similar protest in October, citing many of the same
arguments. Oracle’s federal court complaint filing cites the IBM complaint and
language from other bidders including, Google (which has since withdrawn from
the process) and Microsoft that supports their point that a multi-vendor solution
would make more sense.
The
Department of Justice, which represents the U.S. government in the complaint,
declined to comment.
The DOD also
indicated it wouldn’t comment on pending litigation, but in September
spokesperson Heather Babb told TechCrunch that the contract RFP was not written
to favor any vendor in advance. “The JEDI Cloud final RFP reflects the unique
and critical needs of DOD, employing the best practices of competitive pricing
and security. No vendors have been pre-selected,” she said at the time.
That hasn’t
stopped Oracle from continually complaining about the process to whomever would
listen. This time they have literally made a federal case out of it. The
lawsuit is only the latest move by the company. It’s worth pointing out that
the RFP process closed in October and a winner won’t be chosen until April. In
other words, they appear to be assuming they will lose before the vendor
selection process is even completed.
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