Microsoft Explores Using Ripple Tech For Blockchain as a Service Offering

Following the Ethereum DevCon1 held last month in London, Microsoft on Monday announced the latest progress made in Azure Blockchain as a service (BaaS) in a blog post.

Among other updates, Marley Gray, Director, Technology Strategy US Financial Services pointed out that the company is exploring how Ripple’s Interledger Protocol can be used by the Azure enterprise and developer community to improve its BaaS offering.

“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 said.

Ripple, a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York and Sydney, provides global financial settlement solutions to enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information – giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly, instantly and with certainty of settlement.

Last month, Microsoft announced Ethereum Blockchain as a Service (EBaaS) on Microsoft Azure in partnership with ConsenSys, so that Enterprise clients and developers can have a single click cloud based blockchain developer environment. Gray said that the response from customers and partners have been all positive so far.

“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”, Gray added.