Blockchain Rising – Microsoft the Latest Corporation to Adopt Blockchain Technology
Blockchain isn’t going away anytime soon. The transformational technology is an increasingly hot topic in tech circles, and more and more enterprises are looking to invest in the concept.
We’ve already introduced you to the basics of blockchain; a flexible and theoretically invulnerable form of decentralised distributed ledger. While the concept has been used for online transactions for several years, the potential for more complex applications at organisational level is becoming evident.
Microsoft is the latest multinational to introduce an open-source blockchain framework in keeping with key enterprise requirements. We have detailed their new framework, and explained why multinational corporations are so keen to build in blockchain to their applications.
Coco Framework for Microsoft Azure
The Coco Framework supports blockchain networks that are enterprise-ready, and is said to facilitate more flexible confidentiality models and network policy management by way of distributed governance. Microsoft also claim that their new framework can improve database speeds and provide support for non-deterministic transactions.
Microsoft believe that their Coco Framework is capable of transforming the digital business activities of their clients, with JP Morgan Chase, Intel and R3 already committed to integrating enterprise ledgers using the framework.
What Is Driving the Blockchain Boom?
At organisational level, it seems that no-one wants to be left behind when it comes to implementing blockchain technology. While it has been discussed for years as a potentially disruptive technology, we are now seeing blockchain platforms implemented by major corporations.
Research conducted by UK-based Juniper Research found that 57 per cent of the world’s major corporations are considering or actively pursuing blockchain technology for their systems.
Financial institutions are also actively implementing the technology – IBM was this year commissioned to create a blockchain platform for seven major European banks, to be used to facilitate international trade.
These huge financial investments suggest confidence in the concept, and the lack of third party involvement in blockchain transactions is a major selling point. As a decentralised data structure that allows for a digital ledger of transactions, blockchain is inherently robust and could prove to be cheaper than current technologies once implemented.
With blockchain systems being explored in numerous industries, fears about integration of the concept are abating. More and more people understand the benefits and limitations of the technology, and with major corporations onboard we can expect the blockchain solutions offered up to be dynamic and user-friendly.
We think there will come a time when blockchain will be an essential security tool for a lot of businesses, but it’s difficult to predict when that might be given the explosive rate-of-change.
