Microsoft is Working On Software For The Legal Marijuana Industry (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: Microsoft has announced today that it will partner with Los Angeles-based startup Kind on a system for tracking the legal growing and sale of marijuana. Microsoft will work with the startup on software services for governments tracking legal weed, with Microsoft powering the software through its Azure cloud computing service. "The goal of this relationship is to leverage each company's resources to provide State, County, and Municipalities with purpose built solutions for track and trace ('seed to sale' in the cannabis industry) technology," Kind said in a statement. As reported in The New York Times, this is a pretty significant venture for a corporation publicly journeying into the controversial industry. Growing and selling marijuana is still illegal under the federal government.

Comments

Obviously...

[nospam007]

Waiting for the Blue Smoke of Death.

Very interesting...

[__aaclcg7560]

Will the banks stop doing business with Microsoft for fear of being accused of money laundering for the drug lords?

Re:Very interesting...

[__aaclcg7560]

No, because there's no connection between Microsoft, drug lords or money laundering in this case.

Most banks won't handle financial transactions with pot dispensaries. If Microsoft gets involved with this market segment, the banks may not deal with them either. It's the appearance of money laundering, not any actual crime of money laundering.

Nearly all of the nation's banks refuse to take money from marijuana sales or offer basic checking or credit card services to the industry for fear they'll be shut down by federal authorities, for whom marijuana remains an illegal narcotic. The banks won't do business with growers, processors, retail shops and medical dispensaries, nor with their employees and contractors.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2015/1/5/states-find-you-cant-take-legal-marijuana-money-to-the-bank

Re:Very interesting...

[ShanghaiBill]

The situation is likely to get better for pot merchants after the election in November. He won't win, but Bernie supports legalization. Hillary, as always, waffles and says we should "wait and see", but it is unlikely she will toughen policy especially if the political winds are blowing the other way. Donald has expressed support for full legalization of ALL drugs, but that was a while ago, so who knows what he supports this week. But he is unlikely to roll back state level legalization efforts. All the drug authoritarians (Cruz, Christie, etc.), that want to go back to full retard on the drug war, got wiped out in the primaries. Good riddance.

Re:Very interesting...

[SirSlud]

Banks refuse to take money from pot dispensaries - none of the money from those dispensaries are using payment services from those banks. Pot dispensaries and banks already use Microsoft operating systems and loads of other Microsoft software. There are plenty of pre-existing 2 degrees of separation of cash flow here for this development to present scenario where banks have any fear of being shut down for being tied to the sale of narcotics. No bank is going to go, "Uhoh, we'd better change swaths of our IT infrastructure now because maybe the money pot dispensaries make is spent on Microsoft services, with whom we then do business with." Nor is the federal government going to try and shut down a bank for dealing with Microsoft. If they have any issue with Microsoft's participation in this market, they'd go after Microsoft first.

The jokes write themselves

[OzPeter]

What are the smoking to come with this idea?

1. Smoke Weed,
2. Azure Cloud
3. Chilled out clients
4. Profit!

Burma Shave!

Yeah

[c]

With the $26 billion Linkedin buyout, it's certainly obvious that Microsoft has a lot of expertise in the cannabis industry.

Completely fucking pointless!

[Khyber]

The software already exists - it's called an INVENTORY/LOGISTICS SYSTEM. Any basic fucking warehouse has one.

Oh, but this time, WEED IS INVOLVED! That's worth a patent, right?

Give me a fucking break.

aint none

[frovingslosh]

There is no legal marijuana industry in this country. Just a president who refuses to uphold our laws like he pledged to when he took office. And there is no assurance that the next president will not enforce those laws, and use all of those nice public records to help do it.