Microsoft to Host the Government’s Classified Data

Microsoft is making moves to target a growing multibillion market: hosting, storing and running the US government’s most sensitive classified secrets and data. The company announced it will join rival Amazon as the only commercial cloud providers with the security capabilities to host secret classified data by the end of the first quarter of 2019. Microsoft’s announcement comes days before the Pentagon will accept bids on its $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, which it will award to a single cloud service provider. The announcement doubles as a public declaration of Microsoft’s intent to bid on the contract one day after Google pulled out of the competition in part because the company couldn't meet the Pentagon’s security requirements stipulated for JEDI quickly enough.