Microsoft wins U.S. Defense Department contract; Alphabet bidding to buy Fitbit; Facebook takes down fake political ad
In a dramatic victory, Microfsoft beat out Amazon Web Services for a $10 billion 10 year contract with the U.S. Defense Department, and it is trending on the web. The victory was unexpected due to the fact that Amazon had already won a contract with the CIA. The contract is for public cloud resources and the effects of the victory have already been felt in the market; as Microsofts stock rose 3% and Amazons fell 1%. This contract follows other major cloud infrastructure contracts Microsoft has won in recent times, including one with Walmart.
As per a currently uncorroborated report, Alphabet, the company that owns Google, has made a bid to purchase wearable tech firm Fitbit, and it is trending on Google. The bid if being viewed as Alphabets attempt to break into the wearables and smart watch industry. While nothing may ever come of it, Fitbit shares already rose a staggering 27% upon release of the rumours.
Last up, we have a story trending on Reddit. Following Mark Zuckerbergs recent remarks that Facebook would not be removing any political ads, no matter if they made false claims or not, The Really Online Lefty League decided to release a purposefully false ad just to test the limits of the policy. And it seems that Facebook was not true to their word, as the ad was removed. Although the company has stated it was removed because it came from a political action group and not from an actual politician.