SEATTLE, Washington - Amazon is to appeal a $10 billion contract awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense to Microsoft.

The company had been expected to win the Jedi cloud infrastructure (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) contract, potentially worth around $10 billion over ten years, however U.S. President Donald Trump made it known he was opposed to the Amazon bid. The president has had words with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos who owns The Washington Post, which has been vocal about concerns over the Trump presidency.

After Mr Trump in July raised concerns over the Amazon bid, the Defense Department delayed awarding the contract for 3 months. It finally announced on 25 October that it would go to Microsoft.

Last Friday Amazon lodged an appeal with the Court of Federal Claims protesting the decision.

The race between the two technology giants arose after an initial field of four had submitted bids. Oracle and IBM were the companies that lost out in the initial rounds.

"Amazon Web Services is uniquely experienced and qualified to provide the critical technology the U.S. military needs, and remains committed to supporting the Department of Defense's modernization efforts," a spokesperson for Amazon was quoted by the BBC as saying.

"We also believe it's critical for our country that the government and its elected leaders administer procurements objectively and in a manner that is free from political influence."

"Numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors and unmistakable bias, and it's important that these matters be examined and rectified," the Amazon spokesperson said.

(Image credit: ZDNet).