By Sam Boughedda
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is encouraging other well-known cloud computing providers, including Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) and Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google, to push the U.S. Government to spread its spending on services more widely.
The move is seen as an attempt to scale back Amazon's (NASDAQ:AMZN) dominance in such contracts. According to WSJ sources, Microsoft has reportedly spoken to other cloud companies to jointly lobby Washington to encourage significant government projects to employ more than one cloud service.
In addition, the report stated Microsoft also spoke to VMware (NYSE:VMW), Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL), IBM (NYSE:IBM), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE).
According to Gartner's research, the WSJ said that Amazon's cloud had a 47% share of the 2021 U.S. and Canada public-sector market orders, with the National Security Agency picking Amazon as the sole vendor for a cloud contract worth up to $10 billion in 2021.
Amazon responded to the lobbying campaign by stating, "Public-sector customers should have the freedom and flexibility to determine how to obtain secure, reliable and cost-effective cloud services."
On the other hand, Microsoft calls for a multi-cloud approach, meaning the use of cloud infrastructure from more than one company.