Dow Jones News: Microsoft's JEDI Win Challenged; IBM Rolls Out Advanced Weather Forecasts

The stock market was buoyant on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) up 0.48% by 1:45 p.m. EST. Helping stocks along was a statement from White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow that expressed optimism that a U.S.-China trade deal was coming soon.

Shares of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) gained on Friday despite news that cloud rival Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) was planning to challenge a key cloud contract win for the software giant. International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) was in the news as well, rolling out its new weather forecasting system worldwide.

When the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Microsoft its controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud contract last month, worth as much as $10 billion over 10 years, it came as a big surprise to those who thought Amazon was the easy choice. Microsoft's win took an axe to the notion that Amazon was an unstoppable force in the cloud.

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Source Fool.com