MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2015

Since the announcement of Azure Blockchain as a Service with our first offering of the Ethereum Platform withConsenSys, the response from customers and partners has been overwhelming. All of it positive!

Providing a Blockchain platform in Azure is tremendously valuable for customers who are innovating with different Blockchain technologies and greatly appreciate a "fail fast and cheap" ecosystem to mix and match technologies in a Dev-Test sandbox. Customers evaluate different implementations, performance test and build prototypes much faster with Azure's one-click deployment of Blockchain technology approach.

Additionally, support for Hackathons and workshops has become a much easier proposition with less time standing up infrastructure and more time coding. Partners are finding it equally valuable as their targeted customers can try their technology, provide rapid feedback and respond to customer demand quicker. Once the complete Marketplace structure is in place, a customer's ability to discover Blockchain technologies and value added services will become even simpler.

It has been almost a month since we soft launched at the Ethereum DevCon1 in London, and I wanted to provide an update on where we are along with a general roadmap of what is to come.

Partners and platforms

• Ethereum and ConsenSys
• Two packaged offerings in the marketplace right now:
• Go Ethereum on Ubuntu
• NEW Deploy a virtual machine running BlockApps STRATO to get started with Ethereum
• Several packages in the pipeline with reference implementations and samples specific to Financial Services
• C++ Ethereum
• Ethereum on Windows Server

Ripple

Azure BaaS is currently operating a Ripple validating node for the benefit of Ripple's bank users, providing a valuable stakeholder to the consensus network.

We’re exploring how the Interledger Protocol can be used by the Azure enterprise and developer community to enable new and novel use cases within Microsoft's Blockchain as a Service offering.

We have several customers taking advantage of the Blockchain as a Service platform and an active pipeline of partners getting on-boarded. If you’re a partner eager to get in on the action, or a customer wanting to see a Blockchain technology or value added service in the Marketplace let us know in the comments below.