IBM’s bid to derail Amazon’s awarding of a lucrative $600m CIA cloud computing contract has been rebuffed after a federal judge ruled in favour of Amazon.

The ruling from Judge Thomas Wheeler, which was posted on PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) earlier this week, puts to an end – in theory anyway, IBM can of course still appeal – a saga which has been played out in courtrooms and behind closed doors throughout the summer.

For Jeff Bezos and company, it will certainly appear that justice has been served, after the original contract was handed to Amazon only for IBM to appeal.

Big Blue’s reasons at the time were straightforward enough; Amazon’s proposal was $50m a year more expensive, and the procedures used to rank Amazon’s proposal as being technically superior were wide of the mark, IBM claimed.

A report from the Government Accountability Office …