Microsoft Corp. has reportedly launched an effort to encourage broader multicloud adoption among U.S. government agencies.

The Wall Street Journal reported the move today, citing people familiar with the matter and a Microsoft document. 

The term multicloud describes the practice of sourcing cloud services from multiple providers instead of using only a single provider’s offerings. In recent years, many enterprises have adopted the multicloud approach. Microsoft now reportedly hopes to encourage the federal government to follow suit.

According to the Journal, the company’s new multicloud effort is meant to encourage federal agencies to source cloud services from multiple providers instead of a single company. In recent years, several government cloud contracts have been awarded solely to Microsoft rival Amazon Web Services Inc. rather than to multiple providers. AWS is the industry’s top cloud provider with an estimated 39% share of the infrastructure-as-a-service market. 

Microsoft reportedly launched the new multicloud effort because it has “grown frustrated about its lack of progress” selling Azure services to the federal government. According to Gartner Inc. research cited by the Journal, AWS had a 47% share of U.S. government spending on cloud services in 2021. Microsoft had a 21% share. 

Microsoft is said to have asked a number of fellow tech firms to join its multicloud effort. In particular, the company has reportedly reached out to Google LLC, Oracle Corp., VMware Inc., Dell Technologies Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. According to today’s report, the company has not yet reached out to AWS.

Microsoft’s plan reportedly involves teaming up with other tech firms and jointly lobbying Washington to require that major government technology projects use solutions from more than one cloud provider. Microsoft is said to have “issued talking points to other cloud companies” as part of the initiative.

Microsoft “has consistently advocated a multicloud approach as a commercial best practice, and almost all companies have adopted this,” the company said in a statement responding to today’s report. Microsoft added that it works “with other companies and trade associations to encourage the federal government to adopt the same strategy.”

Last year, the U.S. Defense Department scrapped a controversial single-provider cloud procurement program and replaced it with a multicloud procurement program. Earlier, the Central Intelligence Agency awarded a multibillion-dollar multicloud contract to AWS, Microsoft, Google and IBM.

Microsoft has reportedly described those multicloud contracts as exceptions to the rule in a document sent to other tech companies.

AWS parent Amazon.com Inc. told the Journal in a statement that “public-sector customers should have the freedom and flexibility to determine how to obtain secure, reliable and cost-effective cloud services and software — from the vendor or vendors of their choice—without mandates or unfair software licensing restrictions.”

Photo: Microsoft