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Blockchain Brings Business Boom To IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune's new report on blockchain:
Demand for the technology, best known for supporting bitcoin, is growing so much that it will be one of the largest users of capacity next year at about 60 data centers that IBM rents out to other companies around the globe. IBM was one of the first big companies to see blockchain's promise, contributing code to an open-source effort and encouraging startups to try the technology on its cloud for free. That a 106-year-old company like IBM is going all in on blockchain shows just how far the digital ledger has come since its early days underpinning bitcoin drug deals on the dark web. The market for blockchain-related products and services will reach $7.7 billion in 2022, up from $242 million last year, according to researcher Markets & Markets.
That's creating new opportunities for some of the old warships of the technology world, companies like IBM and Microsoft Corp. that are making the transition to cloud services. And products that had gone out of vogue, such as databases sold by Oracle Corp., are becoming sexy again... In October, Oracle announced the formation of Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, which helps customers extend existing applications like enterprise-resource management systems. A month earlier, rival SAP SE said clients in industries like manufacturing and supply chain were testing its cloud service. And on Nov. 20, Microsoft expanded its partnership with consortium R3 to make it easier for financial institutions to deploy blockchains in its Azure cloud. Big Blue, meanwhile, has been one of key companies behind the Hyperledger consortium, a nonprofit open-source project that aims to create efficient standards for commercial use of blockchain technology.
A Juniper Research survey found six in 10 larger corporations are considering blockchain, according to the article, which adds that blockchain "is increasingly being tested or used by companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. to streamline supply chain, speed up payments and store records."
And because of blockchain's popularity, the CEO of WinterGreen Research predicts that 55% of large companies with over 1,000 employees will use the cloud rather than their own data centers within five years -- up from 17% today.
That's creating new opportunities for some of the old warships of the technology world, companies like IBM and Microsoft Corp. that are making the transition to cloud services. And products that had gone out of vogue, such as databases sold by Oracle Corp., are becoming sexy again... In October, Oracle announced the formation of Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, which helps customers extend existing applications like enterprise-resource management systems. A month earlier, rival SAP SE said clients in industries like manufacturing and supply chain were testing its cloud service. And on Nov. 20, Microsoft expanded its partnership with consortium R3 to make it easier for financial institutions to deploy blockchains in its Azure cloud. Big Blue, meanwhile, has been one of key companies behind the Hyperledger consortium, a nonprofit open-source project that aims to create efficient standards for commercial use of blockchain technology.
A Juniper Research survey found six in 10 larger corporations are considering blockchain, according to the article, which adds that blockchain "is increasingly being tested or used by companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Visa Inc. to streamline supply chain, speed up payments and store records."
And because of blockchain's popularity, the CEO of WinterGreen Research predicts that 55% of large companies with over 1,000 employees will use the cloud rather than their own data centers within five years -- up from 17% today.
Its the .com craze all over again
You know what we called it 20 years ago? DHT.
IBM is going all in
Really? From the article we read "The market for blockchain-related products and services [were] $242 million last year". IBM's revenues last year were around $80 BILLION. The entire block-chain market for products and services was about 0.3% of all of IBM's revenues. That's a VERY interesting definition of "all in" and clearly just an attempt to justify the unstable blockchain market however it can. In this case, by finding a way to hitch itself to a 100+ year old name...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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We will now mine blockchain coins on your 386 running Windows 3.1, welcome to the vaporwave blockchain.
For my blockchainfast this morning, I blockchained up some scrambled blockchain with a side of fried blockchaing, and fresh-blockchained some blockchain juice so I would be sure to get my Vitamin B(lockchain). While I was blockchaining my blockchain, I read the Blockchain Post before hailing a blockchain for a ride to my downtown blockchain where we blockchained a meeting about the week's blockchain strategy and blockchained some references to blockchain into our corporate blockchain statement. Then off to blockchain for a three-blockchain lunch and a blockchained blockchain before heading to our blockchained client's blockchain to implement some blockchain in their blockchain.
Whew! What a blockchain of a day. Happy to be home in my blockchain so I can pop open a blockchain and sit down to blockchain Game Of Blockchains on the blockchain, and maybe play a little first-person blockchain VR, or get online and duke it out in World Of Blockchains before I turn in for a good night's blockchain.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You just do not have enough control and you cannot make sure your core business survives an outage. In addition. it does not really save that much money, it often ends up costing significantly more. Sure, if you do your own infrastructure, you need some competent IT people to run it and make it work well, but maybe refrain from paying peanuts and your IT people will not be monkeys. In the end you do not only get a well-working in-house infrastructure, you get people that care about your company maintaining it and you actual get in-house expertise for all purchases. You just need to realize that IT is critical and that IT is much more important than any of your other functions. That is hard for the "business" side of things.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... filed a patent for blockchain.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"Blockchain" is nothing more than a digital ledger with a checksum.
Nothing about using blockchain requires you to use the public ledgers (Like Bitcoin). You can control the entire ledger if you want.
Digital signatures and distributed databases have existed for decades contrary to the attribution by many of those to blockchain. My customers have had reliable inexpensive low-latency systems for decades that are far superior to anything that blockchain provides or could hope to provide in the future. Digital signatures and hashing are ubiquitous and widely used too. Blockchain is all hype. I've worked at Microsoft for decades and currently work with large companies in Southern California and Hawaii. The only customer I know looking at blockchain was a drug company and they were just doing it in a group that tests new technologies to examine benefits, not because benefits were being realized by adopting it currently. Blockchain and specifically Bitcoin has advantages for illegal activities though - facilitating illicit transactions for gun running, hit men, child prostitution, drugs etc. It's a great way to undermine countries with capital controls. It is probably useful for intelligence organizations to hide their activities and evade oversight. It's probably good for evading taxes and money laundering too. It's a great way to increase entropy in the universe for the lowest cost as miners compete. It provides more drama and headlines for news organizations who refuse to generate real news content. Oh, and as all can see it's the most friction-free global bubble making apparatus conceived since derivitives and the trusts in the 1920's.
I think a lot of people are curious about blockchain technology because Bitcoin has been in the news - people don't want to miss out on the new thing in technology. It's natural that IBM and Oracle are going to use a wedge like that to try to get in the door with people, but I don't think that many businesses are going to have problems where blockchain tech is an important part of the solution.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Everyone is seeing how bitcoin has this great big distributed network and (in my experience) the people thinking we will us the same blockchain distribution haven't figured out that it's not going to be free to have multiple hosts for the chain.
link to another discussion: https://www.quora.com/In-a-pri...
I for one can't wait for Oracle to enter this market. (disclaimer - I hate Oracle).
What goes around comes around. Sometimes the old ways of doing something become useful again.
Blockchain is legacy technology. Responsive cloud chains are the future. Only backwards leaning corporations should deploy blockchain in 2018.
Stay tuned for next week when we provide powerful new insights into the booming bloom filter market.
Companies are making announcements and forward looking statements about blockchains and cryptocurrency. This is a pump and dump wet dream.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
MBA's whole life is to simplify jobs as much as possible and EXTERNALIZES costs (risk is a cost) producing results for the short term. If they screw up, it's not their job that goes 1st; besides, they can work anywhere after a soft landing from their golden parachute... not that they won't save their own asses blaming others... externalizing risk as long as possible.
IT is a cost not an asset; even so, their mentality is to sell of assets for short term gain.
Outsource EVERYTHING to externalize the risks and costs involved; let the contractors fight over the scraps and profitability. If something goes wrong, it's not your fault... Use whatever buzzwords to justify every step in the same evil direction.
You may be a valuable IT asset-- but you are replaceable with consultant cogs which are easier to replace and provide a firewall of accountability that you do not. Complexity of work may keep your job around until the MBAs can split your work into simpler jobs... such as AI augmented jobs... where they can hire a 3rd party consulting service to replace you with a dozen cheap script kiddies with no actual clue of what they are doing.
More consulting services, more CPUs, more storage.
Lots of consulting work to shove blockchain into everything, particularly in areas it provides no benefit.
Lots of CPU/GPU consumption for creating and working with the blockchain.
Extra space to store the blockchain.
And the best part? 99.9+% will provide utterly no return for the customer, so the customer's problems will remain, which means money still has to be spent fixing them, thus the next buzzword phase can follow right after... It's Big-Money Consulting's fantasy come true!
of why everybody's so crazy about it? Is it really just companies hoping to offload their server farms to a distributed database ala bit-torrent?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
For my smurffast this morning, I smurfed up some scrambled smurf with a side of fried smurfg, and fresh-smurfed some smurf juice so I would be sure to get my Vitamin B(lockchain). While I was smurfing my smurf, I read the smurf Post before hailing a smurf for a ride to my downtown smurf where we smurfed a meeting about the week's smurf strategy and smurfed some references to smurf into our corporate smurf statement. Then off to smurf for a three-smurf lunch and a smurfed smurf before heading to our smurfed client's smurf to implement some smurf in their smurf. Whew! What a smurf of a day. Happy to be home in my smurf so I can pop open a smurf and sit down to smurf Game Of smurfs on the smurf, and maybe play a little first-person smurf VR, or get online and duke it out in World Of smurfs before I turn in for a good night's smurf.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
And the rest of the world is far behind: https://www.newyorker.com/maga...
It's a secure way to validate ledger entries. The craze is just that, a craze that will pass.
The 3 greatest tech companies are leading the way! The future will soon be here!
Note to self: Blockchain may not be as important as many people think given who is leading the way with it.
By the way....WTF happened to the quotes around the word database? They weren't in his post, and I simply copy/pasted it into my quote tags. I am NOT using an apple device (oneplus one, lineage os, chrome browser). How did they get converted from normal ASCII quotes to Unicode? Is this something new in chrome? Some setting in lineage? I haven't see that before.
There have been some lending companies in New Jersey using blockchain for decades. Every once in a while, the chain slips off of a lender in arrears and the body pops up up in the East Channel.
Have gnu, will travel.
... and Oracle to make it burdensome and difficult.
are people really this naïve?
IBM just out-couraged Apple.
I guess the tables have turned since 1984. IBM is now the lean, mean, agile innovator and Apple the stodgy, mega-corp that consumers are falling out of love with.
"Blockchain Brings Business Boom To Big Blue, Big Bad, and Big Brother"
If you want to get in on the cryptocurrency mining scene, you need a good motherboard that allows for multiple GPUs: ASRock H110 Pro BTC+, ASUS B250, Biostar TB350-BTC, and GIGABYTE GA-H110-D3A.