U.S. defense chief says cloud contract was fair, despite Amazon challenge

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday the Pentagon awarded Microsoft Corp an up to $10 billion cloud computing contract after a fair competition, after Amazon.com Inc announced plans to challenge it over alleged bias.

Seoul: U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Friday the Pentagon awarded Microsoft Corp an up to $10 billion cloud computing contract after a fair competition, after Amazon.com Inc announced plans to challenge it over alleged bias.

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“I am confident it was conducted freely and fairly without any type of outside influence,” Esper told a news conference in Seoul.

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Amazon claims that politics got in the way of a fair contracting process. President Donald Trump has long criticized Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos.(Reuters)