In a new study, market research company Juniper Research has found that IBM is way ahead of its competitors in the blockchain industry.
Juniper’s Blockchain Enterprise Survey sought responses from nearly 400 company founders, executives, managers, and IT leaders. Amongst enterprises either actively considering, or in the process of deploying blockchain technology, more than 4 in 10 (43%) ranked IBM first - more than twice the proportion selecting second-placed Microsoft (20%).
According to the study, IBM has the strongest credentials in the blockchain sector, followed by Microsoft and Accenture in the second and third place respectively. Juniper said that the ranking “reflected IBM’s high-profile R&D engagement with initiatives such as Hyperledger and its extensive list of blockchain clients across an array of key verticals and use cases, including banking, asset tracking and the music industry.”
Furthermore, amongst the respondent who stated their levels of blockchain investment, 67 percent said that they have invested over $100,000 by the end of 2016, while 91 percent said that they would be spending at least this amount in 2017. This signified that most initial investments had delivered results that were sufficiently encouraging for companies to pursue more extensive trials and/or integrations, Juniper said.
In an accompanying report, Juniper urged companies to focus on private blockchains for commercial deployments, rather than using public chains. It argued that most corporate applications would require the capability to restrict access to permissioned users, while companies would also need to have a degree of control over the development of the blockchain on which their systems have become dependent.
“Even if companies conduct initial testing using a public blockchain, in most cases the shortcomings of these chains should disqualify them from many use cases, including financial settlement, public sector deployments, logistics and land registry”, research author Dr Windsor Holden said.
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