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Microsoft Looks to Expand Blockchain-Based Toolkit with Ripple Integration

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:46 PM
Samburaj Das
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:46 PM

Fresh from launching its Ethereum-powered blockchain platform for customers of its cloud platform Azure, Microsoft has revealed it intends to add Ripple, an interledger protocol to its blockchain-based toolkit.

Microsoft originally made the announcement to offer an Ethereum-blockchain solution for its customers after striking a partnership with ConsenSys toward the end of October. The objective was simple. Collaborate with the Brooklyn-based startup to grant Microsoft’s enterprise users the necessary tools to use the Ethereum Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS). The applications would allow Azure customers to experiment with blockchain in a sandbox, without any substantial costs or crypto expertise.

At the time, two tools were introduced to Microsoft clients.

  • BlockApps Strato  – A toolkit within a sandbox to help developers experiment with their applications before wider release.
  • Camp – An explorer tool for the blockchain that will help businesses and their developers scale their own blockchain applications.

With the toolkit offering in partnership with ConsenSys, Microsoft notes that the response from both customers and partners has been “overwhelming,” with “all of it positive.”

Microsoft’s Marley Gray, the director of technology strategy for U.S. financial services notes that customers like the “fail fast and cheap” ecosystem that the Azure blockchain brings as an easy to use sandbox.

Now, Microsoft has revealed in an update that it intends to add a Ripple validating node that will prove to come in handy for Ripple’s bank users.  With the announcement, Microsoft notes that Ripple is now among its partners alongside Ethereum and ConsenSys.

Ripple is a global settlement network that provides financial settlement solutions for companies and banks by lowering the costs of settlement and the time taken for it.

Explaining the partnership with Ripple in a blog post , Gray noted:

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.

Gray also added Microsoft is looking at ways in which the Interledger Protocol used by Ripple could be integrated into Azure.

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.

Microsoft launched the Azure Blockchain service last month for a clientele mostly compromising of banks and insurance companies. During the revealing, Gray claimed the technology will help companies create their own private blockchains to help with “smart contracts,” contracts that can automatically be executed within 20 minutes by new adopters with no prior experience in blockchain.

With the latest update, Gray talks up “an active pipeline of partners” that are getting on board to the Azure Blockchain service.

Featured image from Shutterstock.