And yet another developer focused announcement trying to establish a blockchain / distributed ledger standard – this time for J.P. Morgan Quorum. This announcement indicates that the Quorum lump of clay is now available to be molded to your exact needs if you intend to utilize Azure and Microsoft support.
It’s unclear how this instance of Quorum on Azure might be deployed in a distributed fashion, especially if the use case required it on AWS. But there will be awesome blockchain solutions deployed in the world, there’s just insufficient information in this announcement to determine if any of them will use this instance of Quorum:
“J.P. Morgan (NYSE: JPM) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on Thursday announced they have signed a memorandum of understanding to form a strategic partnership to accelerate the adoption of enterprise blockchain. Through this partnership, Quorum, developed by J.P. Morgan, will become the first distributed ledger platform available through Azure Blockchain Service, enabling J.P. Morgan and Microsoft customers to build and scale blockchain networks in the cloud.
‘We are incredibly proud of the success Quorum has had over the last four years, as organizations around the world use Quorum to solve complex business and societal problems via blockchain solutions,’ said Umar Farooq, Global Head of Blockchain, J.P. Morgan. ‘We are delighted to partner alongside Microsoft as we continue to strengthen Quorum and expand capabilities and services on the platform. Azure will bring unique strengths to enterprise clients using Quorum.’
The partnership with Azure will further strengthen Quorum as a fully integrated, Ethereum-based blockchain platform and suite of applications. Together, the platform will enable enterprise businesses across all industries to shift their focus from infrastructure management to application development, ultimately driving transformative business value. Customers will be able to rapidly grow their networks while benefitting from lower costs, simplified deployment and built-in governance enabled through Azure Blockchain Service.
Going forward, J.P. Morgan and Microsoft will continue to work together to address common enterprise, Independent Software Vendor, and developer needs for building and deploying blockchain applications on Quorum in the cloud. Microsoft will also provide engineering, consulting and go-to-market support for Quorum.”
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
