Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) won a legal round Jan. 4 in its protest against an Interior Department decision to award Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) a $49.3 million contract for messaging and collaboration services when a federal judge ordered the department to stop the contract's planned implementation.

In a 27-page Court of Federal Claims decision reported by Bloomberg (UPDATE: the decision is now online [.pdf]), Judge Susan Braden said she was placing a preliminary injunction on Interior because were the agency to proceed with implementation, it would "achieve 'organizational lock-in' for Microsoft, and cost Google the opportunity to compete."

Braden says she was informed that Interior was due to start migration to Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal on Jan. 25, according to Bloomberg.

Google initiated the suit on Oct. 29, alleging that the Interior request for quotation leading to the Microsoft award was prejudiced against it. Google attempted to contest the solicitation language in a pre-bid protest to the Government Accountability Office, which refused to hear it on the grounds that Google wasn't an "interested party."

Successfully arguing for a Court of Federal Claims preliminary injunction in a post-award protest case is, many protest lawyers say, difficult to do. As a result, issuance of a preliminary injunction is commonly seen as a precursor to the protest being sustained by the Court.   

For more:
- read the Bloomberg article
- when Judge Braden's decision is available online, we will link to it here (.pdf)

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