Microsoft rewarded for security failures with another US Government contract

Summary

Microsoft, the latest tech firm to agree to big software discounts for the US government, is digging even deeper into its bargain bin than the competition by offering a year of free Copilot access to government agencies willing to put up with its other problem products. The General Services Administration (GSA) announced its new deal with Microsoft on Tuesday, describing it as a "strategic partnership" that could save the federal government as much as $3.1 billion over the next year. The GSA didn't mention specific discount terms, but it said that services, including Microsoft 365, Azure cloud services, Dynamics 365, Entra ID Governance, and Microsoft Sentinel, will be cheaper than ever for feds. That, and Microsoft's next-gen Clippy, also known as Copilot, is free to access for any agency with a G5 contract as part of the new deal, too. That free price undercuts Google's previously cheapest-in-show deal to inject Gemini into government agencies for just $0.47 for a year. The GSA made this Microsoft deal as part of its OneGov initiative, which seeks to centralize purchasing of products and services used across the government under a single contract. While the agency intends for OneGov to extend across the federal government, the first phase of the program focuses exclusively on IT contracts. Though it only announced OneGov in April, the GSA has awarded contracts under the plan at a rapid pace, with Oracle the first firm to sign a deal in July. That agreement includes a 75 percent discount on its products to government agencies. The agency wrote many of the other OneGov contracts to get AI products into the hands of government agencies. OpenAI and Anthropic both made deals with the GSA in August to provide a year of their services to agencies for $1 each, which Google undercut later last month. Even Box made an AI discount deal with the federal government, though it didn't disclose pricing. Outside of AI offerings, Amazon Web Services inked its own OneGov deal with t...