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Statement on Microsoft Bid Protest Decision

The following is a statement from Ralph O. White, Managing Associate General Counsel for the Procurement Law Division at GAO regarding today’s decision resolving the bid protest filed by the Microsoft Corporation, B-420004, B-420004.2.

On October 29, 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained the protest filed by the Microsoft Corporation, of Redmond, Washington.  Microsoft challenged the award of a contract to Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), of Seattle, Washington under solicitation No. H98230-20-R-0225.  The solicitation was issued by the National Security Agency (NSA) for cloud services in support of that agency’s classified and unclassified computing requirements (NSA procurement name WILDANDSTORMY, or WandS).  GAO found certain aspects of the agency’s evaluation to be unreasonable and, in light thereof, recommended that NSA reevaluate the proposals consistent with the decision and make a new source selection determination.

The GAO decision issued today is classified, because the protest record included classified information.  Additionally, the decision was issued under a GAO protective order because the decision may contain proprietary and source selection sensitive information.  After the NSA conducts a security review of the decision for classified information and the parties identify proprietary and source selection sensitive information that cannot be publicly released, GAO intends to prepare and release a public version of the decision.  When the public version of the decision is available, it will be posted to our website, “www.gao.gov.”

GAO’s decision expresses no view as to the relative merits of the AWS and Microsoft proposals.  Judgments about which offeror will most successfully meet the government’s needs are reserved for the procuring agencies, subject only to statutory and regulatory procurement requirements.  GAO’s bid protest process is handled by GAO’s Office of General Counsel and examines whether procuring agencies have complied with procurement laws and regulations.

For more information, please contact Ralph O. White at 202-512-8278, Kenneth E. Patton at 202-512-8205, or Chuck Young at 202-512-4800.  More information about GAO’s Bid Protest process is also available on the GAO website.

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