Pentagon awards Microsoft $9.7 billion deal in bid to cut costs, end license sprawl

Read a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST
FAST

WASHINGTON, May 27 : The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a five-year, $9.69 billion agreement to consolidate Microsoft and other enterprise software licenses scattered across the military services, the intelligence community, and the U.S. Coast Guard into a single contract vehicle, officials said. 

The cost-cutting effort hands Microsoft a guaranteed enterprise-wide foothold across the U.S. armed forces while squeezing out duplicative spending that officials said had quietly ballooned across years of fragmented, go-it-alone procurement.

The deal, called the Core Enterprise Technology Agreement, is not new spending because baskets of Pentagon software contracts came up for renewal simultaneously. The funds come from existing budgets already being used to purchase Microsoft 365 subscriptions — covering email, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and related tools — along with cloud subscriptions and on-premises licensing, into one place where the full purchasing weight of the department can be used to drive down costs.

Newsletter

Week in Review

Subscribe to our Chief Editor’s Week in Review

Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.

Sign up for our newsletters

Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox

Subscribe here

Get the CNA app

Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories

Download here

Get WhatsApp alerts

Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app

Join here