IBM gives up fight to build CIA's $600m secret cloud, hands deal to Amazon

IBM has stumbled away from its legal tussle with Amazon over a strategically important contract to build a $600m cloud system for the CIA. Today Big Blue withdrew its formal protest against the spooks' decision to use the online bazaar's technology, effectively ceding the massive contract to Jeff Bezos & Co. It also marks a …

[Anonymous Coward]

Destiny

"...watch out, Eucalyptus, your partner might just be gearing up to trample you."

Gee you think? Amazon is turning into the new Microsoft. Build them up, lock them in, stab them in the back. Amazon's current track record only proves this, and somehow people willing to do business with them are still blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes. I hate Amazon, but I have no sympathy at this point for people who are willfully staying blind.

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM will charge you a license for just about everything to the point it will and is going to license itself out of business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Licensing is common practice across the industry. So if everyone licenses themselves out the business then there will be no business left.

Alternatively we could all buy a new piece of hardware each time we want to buy new software to run on it.

[Robert Grant]

It's not licencing, as the OP said, it's IBM. Everything costs a fortune: software, hardware, consultants, and everything seems to take ages. Time for some fresh toolsets.

[frank ly]

Translation

"in light of the government's recent submissions emphasizing its need to move forward on the contract, IBM has withdrawn its motion." ->

The government told us that we'll have nothing but grief on all future tenders if we don't STFU now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good grief

If only the rest of us in the tech industry could be paid that much to build an oxymoron.

[El_Fev]

@frank ly

You got it in one!

[NoneSuch]

CIA = Titanic

Cloud = Iceberg

It's just a matter of time before the two meet in a bad way.

[tony2heads]

@NoneSuch

With so many people outside US jurisdiction involved in Amazon, how the hell does the CIA expect it to be secure?

Or is it just a giant honeypot?

[Anonymous Coward]

They've seen how well outsourcing worked for the NSA -

perhaps they are just envious of all the free publicity that came from it?

[Fletchulence]

Ah IBM

First PC I ever saw was at work in the early 90's. One nightshift 3 IBM support "engineers" arrived and said they had to lock down the PC because someone had bypassed the operating software, accessed DOS and that wasn't allowed. They all scratched their heads for 10 minutes arguing about how to access DOS on the machine, so I helpfully suggested a boot disk. After they'd agreed none of them had a boot disk I asked if they'd like to borrow mine. At which point, of course, the cries began "It was you! You're the one!".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ah IBM

Yep, the behaviour of those three people over twenty years ago accurately represents everyone working for a tech giant who employ more than 400k people today.

[amanfromMars 1]

Dragon Family Eventing ...... KIngs Ransoms and AI@ITsWork

Crooked Uncle Sam has Bills to Pay and if there aint no Cash Stash then there will Assets Foreclosure and Programs Confiscation ..... Lockout from Driver Command and Control.

IBM/CIA et al have much more than just Amazon to feed and seed for lead survival in the global ideas market place and virtual realisation space ....... http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/chaos-theory-dragon-kings/#comment-1101810131

Steal from a Dragon and there be Heaven and Hell to Pay Forever and a Day.

And yes, that is quite cryptic but transparent enough for those in the know with a need to know and the wherewithall to do something disruptively constructive and nobly creative with it, and in so doing start major changes in everything.

[Morten Bjoernsvik]

I bet the hardware vendors are happy - not

Revenue but not much margin:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/08/16/sgi-and-amazon/

I knew IBM had problems with their SmartCloud when they bought SoftLayer. Amazons S3 is way much more advanced and feature rich it is like vmware ESX against first version of Oracles virtual-box. IBM is probably the vendor with the most to loose by moving to the cloud. In the cloud everything needs to be commoditized and streamlined in order to save cost and manpower. IBM wants to deal with your large problems and make a premium on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it will never be built.

And this is a good thing for democracy.

There are plenty of politicians that want the kicking of the century. The scum only do what is right to avoid being stabbed. It is good that they're going to have to behave like they're actually responsible for their actions.

I'm sure the entire opposition benches would benefit from a real beating. The prospect of being caught is the only thing that stops most people, I'm sure.

[billse10]

for the general hoi polloi

or, even, for hoi polloi

(see icon)

[cannedcat]

IBM never gives up

We are at a fork: will IBM give up to Amazon seriously , (starting its own decline) or is IBM preparing a surprise like the PC used to defeat Apple in the '80s?