Influence Alley

As federal agencies have been pushed to prioritize moving from more traditional data storage to cloud computing, companies like Amazon are winning out, big time.

In less than two years, Amazon Web Services increased the number of governmental agencies it works with from 20 to 150, reports the Washington Post. The company has also lured away a top Microsoft executive, Teresa Carlson, to work on its public sector operations.

While AWS is raking in government contracts, parent company Amazon.com has been running a robust lobbying shop. For starters, they spent $2.2 million on lobbying last year--nearly double what it spent in 2008-- and $650,000 during the first quarter of 2012. And its efforts are overseen by its own lobbyists, with former Federal Communications Commission chief of staff Paul Misener as the vice president of Amazon.com's global policy.

(Photo: The logo for Amazon.com is displayed at a news conference, Sept. 28, 2011 in New York. AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)