Microsoft President Brad Smith said the federal government should introduce reforms to expedite the protest process for contract awards, FedScoop reported Tuesday.
Microsoft has not started work on the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract the Department of Defense (DOD) awarded in October 2019 due to an ongoing protest filed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in November of that year.
Smith told Senate Armed Service Committee members during a hearing Tuesday reforms to the contract protest process would enable federal agencies to quickly acquire and use technology without forgoing the opportunity for companies to raise their concerns.
“How do you move quickly when the protest process moves so slowly?” Smith told lawmakers.
In January, DOD officials informed lawmakers of the possible implications of the ongoing legal battle with AWS over the JEDI contract through a memo and noted that a lengthy legal challenge will likely prompt the department to reassess its cloud procurement strategy.
