Pentagon awards Microsoft $9.7 billion deal in bid to cut costs, end license sprawl

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WASHINGTON, May 27 : The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a five-year, $9.69 billion agreement to consolidate Microsoft and other enterprise software licenses scattered across the military services, the intelligence community, and the U.S. Coast Guard into a single contract vehicle, officials said.  The cost-cutting effort hands Microsoft a guaranteed enterprise-wide foothold across the U.S. armed forces while squeezing out duplicative spending that officials said had quietly ballooned across