Benzinga | Nov 4, 2021 07:48AM EDT

Google To Bid For Pentagon Cloud Computing Contract; Oracle, IBM May Join Too

* Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google is pursuing a massive cloud-computing contract with the Department of Defense, the Wall Street Journal reports.

* Google abandoned a similar bid process three years back in the face of employee protests.

* Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian recently met Pentagon officials to discuss the bid process for a contract called the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability.

* The three-year contract will be split across multiple bidders, replacing the 10-year, $10 billion JEDI cloud-computing contract terminated in July.

* The project was a bone of contention between Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT), which won the bidding, and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), which contended the process was politically motivated under the Trump administration.

* The officials expect cloud-industry leaders Amazon and Microsoft to bid on the contract and other qualified bidders like Oracle Corp (NYSE:ORCL) and International Business Machines Corp (NYSE:IBM).

* Google's cloud marketing share of 6% lags considerably behind Amazon at 41% and Microsoft at 20%.

* Related Content: Oracle Loses Court Appeal For JEDI Contract: Bloomberg

* Price Action: MSFT shares traded higher by 0.10% at $334.32 in the premarket session on the last check Thursday.