IBM has claimed it has the lead in the increasingly competitive blockchain and distributed ledger technology market, saying the new release of its IBM Blockchain service is the first "enterprise-ready" one of its kind.
Like other companies, IBM is basing its blockchain on Hyperledger, the open-source project hosted at the Linux Foundation. Recently, Hyperledger Fabric version 1.0 was promoted from the Foundation's incubator program to "active" status. The v1.0 release is expected to be released shortly.
Big Blue is one of the biggest and most active contributors to Hyperledger, having contributed key code to the effort that produced the incubation project. Since then, the diversity of contributors to Hyperledger has reached 45 percent, after starting out with nearly none, according to the Linux Foundation.
IBM made its announcement in conjunction with the Interconnect conference in Las Vegas. IBM's revenue model for its blockchain centers on offering secure hosting and consulting services around the software. Hyperledger isn't the only major effort of its kind; others include R3 and Ethereum.
It's clear that IBM will emphasize its security expertise as a differentiator, judging from this passage in its press release:
Many think blockchain is an inherently safe technology, but blockchain networks are only as safe as the infrastructures on which they reside. IBM's High Security Business Network offers the world’s most secure Linux infrastructure that integrates security from the hardware up through the software stack.
The network's security measures include defenses for insider attacks; the highest level of customer system isolation, which is crucial fo highly regulated industries; the use of secure containers to protect blockchain code; specialized hardware modules for storing cryptographic keys; and extensive log data for auditing purposes.
In addition, IBM announced a set of governance tools for setting up and overseeing blockchain networks, as well as Fabric Composer, open-source developer tools that the company says can automate tasks that previously could take weeks.
Although opinions vary about whether blockchain is overhyped, IBM's announcement is noteworthy.
"There has been a wide range of comment as to whether or not blockchain is a viable technology that can be developed to support decentralized, distributed commercial settlements in the digital economy," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. "Cetainly the requirement is very real, and as a result a lot of startups are offering various forms of small-scale variations. With its approach to its blockchain service, IBM has taken its characteristic role in providing core technology to support the open source community, with the expectation that harnessing many skilled individuals will result in speeding up meaningful progress. It's a bold move, and one to keep a watching eye upon as a core component of the expansion of the digital economy and IoT."
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