Note from the Publisher: Microsoft has been out in the forefront on forward thinking digital currency and blockchain initiatives for a while now. A year ago (which seems like a decades ago when you're talking digital currencies and blockchain), they were involved in the Ethereum project, and now Ethereum is the second most traded digital currency going (after bitcoin). Coindesk has published an interesting piece about their Azure division which wants to help all kinds of industries for consortiums to establish blockchain protocols, just as R3CEV has done in the banking arena.
This got us to thinking - what is Google doing on this front? From what we can gather, not as much as Microsoft, bu they are invested in digital currencies and blockchain through their Google Ventures (now called GV) division. Still it seems to us like Microsoft is way ahead of the curve on this one.
"If Microsoft Azure's CTO is right, R3CEV may have just been the beginning.
Mark Russinovich envisions a world where every industry is involved in a blockchain consortium. In fact, since the network effect of a blockchain is only amplified by the number of participants, he thinks this future will prove inevitable as companies seek efficiency in numbers.
And there's evidence so far to suggest that Russinovich is right.
Since blockchain industry groups first began to pop up last year with the formation of financial consortium R3CEV, the rate those efforts being announced has only increased. To meet the growing demand, Microsoft went so far as to launch Project Bletchley, an effort designed to make it easier to establish consortia."
Read Full Article at CoinDesk
Read Article on Google Investments at LetsTalkPayments