Is IBM is on path to bring blockchain to the masses?

[aBTCd]

Let's be honest. If anyone can really afford R&D in new technologies, it's IBM. Especially because they are already on a mission to implement blockchain in daily use. For example food industry with supply chain, advertising, finance trades. See for yourself: https://www.ibm.com/blockchain

But what actually this mean? Is IBM on a path to conquer the world of blockchain? Did they found the missing link to adoption BC to masses? Or are they still on a mission to find it?

Because since I first heard for blockchain, I've wondered what is the REAL usability of a new player in technology, so-called "blockchain".  Is it only good at being public, decentralized? For this case, I thought, OK, this may be good for finance (bitcoin), also elections, but what else?

Can blockchain technology really come ahead with a hybrid between public and private? I work in the Mechanical Industry sector and can clearly see what IBM is doing right now. And when companies will recognize the potential in it (savings, better, faster work, accuracy, less waste...) it will become huge. But in this case, we are talking about private blockchain that can still outperform traditional databases. So it means, it works.

Masses need to adapt technology to become global. But I think in this case those masses will be companies, later people. And companies don't like to share data with everyone, only with parties that are trustworthy. And this is how (hybrid) private blockchains can rise.

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[clickerz]

Since then IBM is involved in several blockchain projects. As far as I know, IBM is involved in Stellar coin development. Its  been exploring blockchain technology and in 2017 they launch a "Blockchain as a Service "  which is based on the open-source Hyperledger Fabric, version 1.0 .

[John37]

I think it's very useful that the whole supply chain is on BC (from raw material to product). I doubt they will use the XLM platform. Maybe they will do their own BC.

[Wexnident]

IBM is one of the oldest players in the blockchain development iirc. And honestly, implementation of blockchain to our everyday transactions seem appealing yet underestimated by most. I for one don't know how important it is, but let us take note of how iBM has been a forerunner in this, and the recent announcement of China to concentrate in the development of Blockchain.

[Hydrogen]

I remember IBM announcing a joint blockchain venture with walmart and many others in 2017.

IBM & Walmart Launching Blockchain Food Safety Alliance In China With Fortune 500's JD.com

In further move to apply Blockchain technology for food traceability to support offline and online consumers, IBM, Walmart and Nasdaq-listed Chinese retailer JD.com together with Tsinghua University National Engineering Laboratory for E-Commerce Technologies have announced a Blockchain Food Safety Alliance collaboration to improve food tracking and safety in China.

By collaborating with one of China's largest retailers, JD.com, a member of the NASDAQ-100 and a Fortune Global 500 company, and their suppliers, the latest effort is touted as helping to bring a safer food supply to China, and an extension of the work initiated by Walmart and IBM earlier this year in August in the US.

Through the latter initiative, ten food suppliers and retailers - Dole, Driscoll’s, Golden State Foods, Kroger, McCormick and Company, McLane Company, Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Unilever and Walmart - signalled their intention to collaborate. And, Walmart's food safety solution has been working with IBM and its Blockchain Platform.

That initiative is designed to bring the requisite efficiency, transparency and authenticity to food supply chains around the world. The solution from ‘Big Blue’ is global - reflecting the global nature of supply chains.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2017/12/14/ibm-walmart-launching-blockchain-food-safety-alliance-in-china-with-fortune-500s-jd-com/

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything done with blockchain by IBM over the last 2 years.

IBM has been in something like a decline. They sold their desktop/laptop PC manufacturing business to china, years back. It was rebranded and is known as Lenovo now. They may have opted to pursue blockchain projects in an effort to boost their stock price, which may have been common around that 2 year back timeframe, when many US stocks achieved significant price growth on the stock market simply by announcing blockchain projects which some of them had no real intent on following through on.

I think there is still some room for untapped potential in terms of blockchain utilization. IBM seems to have kind of given up on blockchain.

[crwth]

IBM has the power to Put funding into blockchain technology. But I doubt that it’s for mass adoption. They are there to improve the actual technology, but it’s just a second priority, in my opinion. I’m not part of IBM, but I think it’s reasonable to look at it that way.

I think it’s not just IBM who has the power or the capability to have R&D With regards to blockchain technology. All of the top 10 probably could have the ability to influence the market, like Microsoft and Google.

[avikz]

Why only IBM? If you talk about affordability, even Google can afford expensive R&Ds! Facebook can do that as well! There are other cash rich companies in the world who can do the same! I seriously do not remember anything great from IBM related to blockchain technology in all these years! Funding is not an issue to many companies, but the willingness to become the frontrunner in blockchain tech is certainly lacking, at a great scale!

[panganib999]

Why only IBM? If you talk about affordability, even Google can afford expensive R&Ds! Facebook can do that as well! There are other cash rich companies in the world who can do the same! I seriously do not remember anything great from IBM related to blockchain technology in all these years! Funding is not an issue to many companies, but the willingness to become the frontrunner in blockchain tech is certainly lacking, at a great scale!

Well, IBM was a forerunner. FB just started with their Libra, and I haven't heard any news about blockchain with google since the most I've heard of them was their quantum supremacy. And honestly, at the time blockchain started sprouting, I think it didn't bring out much in terms of allure for these companies to jump ahead and provide an R&D and funds for it. IBM was the only one whom started funding R&D to it and well, even if they did, it didn't actually result to much. Only when BTC popped off did most companies/countries took note of what Blockchain technology is.

[aardvark15]

Blockchain technology will be widespread eventually through various sources including decentralized cryptocurrency and through companies and governments. There will probably be other technologies that develop that may be even better as well.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…> Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything done with blockchain by IBM over the last 2 years. <…>

Not quite so really. IBM has been doing things (as have many other large Consultancy firms and corporations) over these past few years. For example, Nestlé and Carrefour (supermarket chain) recently announced that they are implementing traceability of infant milk using IBM Food Trust. (See: https://beincrypto.com/nestle-is-putting-baby-formula-on-the-blockchain).

I took a look at IBM Food Trust recently (see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-food-trust-trace-products for example) and there are some interesting things to it. Besides allowing for traceability of food, it also allows one to see alerts on inventory for perishable goods, trace the whereabouts of specific lots, and so forth. That is to say, the traceability is not only aimed at the end-consumer, but at the production and distribution layers.

Now the key question here is deciphering whether blockchain is really necessary, or whether it is just some fancy nice to have, with a publicity edge to it (trendy, alleged transparency with end-consumers, etc.). The software implementation for traceability here could just as well have been implemented on conventional software (tailored ERP for example).

So where is the added value and need? (this is the dual core question to ask for any blockchain implementation).

You could argue here that the value is in the inherent principal of blockchain: being transparent over system that provides trust in essence through the inmutability and traceability of the data. That, taken on to the traceability of the food industry is a potential value from a corporate point of view, and, if properly exploited, can position a brand as both trendy and transparent. It’s at least exploitable marketing-wise (whether it comes along with a desired ROI is to be seen on a case by case basis).

[CarnagexD]

<…> Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything done with blockchain by IBM over the last 2 years. <…>

Not quite so really. IBM has been doing things (as have many other large Consultancy firms and corporations) over these past few years. For example, Nestlé and Carrefour (supermarket chain) recently announced that they are implementing traceability of infant milk using IBM Food Trust. (See: https://beincrypto.com/nestle-is-putting-baby-formula-on-the-blockchain).

I took a look at IBM Food Trust recently (see https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-food-trust-trace-products for example) and there are some interesting things to it. Besides allowing for traceability of food, it also allows one to see alerts on inventory for perishable goods, trace the whereabouts of specific lots, and so forth. That is to say, the traceability is not only aimed at the end-consumer, but at the production and distribution layers.

Not what I expect for the company IBM. I see their organization to lead that time and do great projects that could potentially help (although they did, but again not what I expected it to be) I can't really say that they have lost along the way after the competition had surfaced, I haven't heard from them after unveiling of their Blockchain as a service, open source hyperledger fabric v1.0. This is not what I expect for IBM to be, or did I just over expected for one of the most influential technology company?

Now the key question here is deciphering whether blockchain is really necessary, or whether it is just some fancy nice to have, with a publicity edge to it (trendy, alleged transparency with end-consumers, etc.). The software implementation for traceability here could just as well have been implemented on conventional software (tailored ERP for example).

So where is the added value and need? (this is the dual core question to ask for any blockchain implementation).

Good point of view in asking "is blockchain necessary?". If you'll buy a candy for a penny would you unlock your phone, open an application and scan qr to pay? rather than getting a penny out on your wallet? Some companies are doing things on blockchain with much significant and correct approach. It isn't just for fancy, to look more techie, to look more advance thing, value and necessity must be fulfilled.

[Ayiranorea]

As IBM is a technology depended company it giving importance to blockchain and other advancement isn't a big thing. Always they'll be keeping their business alive and active with the booming technology. Also I confirmed its presence in blockchain technology through a friend of mine working for IBM. On a regular conversation had to discuss about weekly classes cum training sessions conducted on IBM. It was completely about blockchain technology.

[Harlot]

There's really more to it in our world then saying that "supply chain" is something that can change our world for the good, this is just a blockchain technology from a single company that will just improve efficiency and transparency we don't even know yet how they will apply this to the masses yet so we can't quickly assume if everyone can benefit from this at all. The way I see it just like what other companies do it is they will just roll it out on a small group and see how things will benefit from it and since we are talking about supply chain we are talking about companies who will use it so it's not really directed to the consumer stand point but for the company's efficiency when they apply this, there is no direct benefit to us.

[suzanne5223]

IBM is a lover sound technology, they are always interested in innovation technology which is the reason why they have their doors opened for any partnership from small and big outstanding enterprise. So, I won't be surprised if they bring blockchain with the inclusion of crypto to the masses since they have already create an equipment for the blockchain and cryptosphere

[Kyraishi]

They are flipping huge! IBM is one of the only companies that is actively trying to push blockchain technology, and they've been very successful with this sort of stuff, trying to adopt this new technology with everything.

IBM is trying to push blockchain technology into a lot of random industries, they are trying to even involve the technology into the food industry, trying to use it for successful tracking of food, etc.

Pretty interesting stuff.

[LeGaulois]

...

There are a few projects, in insurance, the food industry, payments transfers, etc. The thing is that IBM 'promote' its blockchain as BaaS or via partnerships, and it has many.

Just 6 months ago, Nestlé and a supermarket brand deployed IBM's blockchain for traceability in my country. We can scan a QR code and get the information (what we call here the transaction details). But we have no way of checking (cryptographically speaking) if the information is accurate. We have to trust them and they're just showing us some information on a web page. It's not really more advantageous than a database (I'm talking at the citizen level)

I tried once and to be honest, a waste of time. Ok it tells me my potatoes are grown in the north, okay, but it was already written at the supermarket when I bought them.  

[Hippocrypto]

Since then IBM is involved in several blockchain projects. As far as I know, IBM is involved in Stellar coin development. Its  been exploring blockchain technology and in 2017 they launch a "Blockchain as a Service "  which is based on the open-source Hyperledger Fabric, version 1.0 .

They had the huge advantage on the side of crypto, and gladly as they're involvement with Stellar coin development; of course more upcoming updates will be more focused. Being out of date of the technology isn't possible, since IBM is widely known and popular on computer generation. Blockchain technology is generally their expertise in terms of more new discoveries that's going to be revealed in the near future.

[Mr. Spasybo]

That's good news for the community, but IBM is also developing quantum computers, so blockchain will be the object of their first test to prove the power of quantum computers

[mu_enrico]

IBM stock price still in decline since early-mid 2013. This situation should give us some context about its performance. Speaking about permissioned DLT, I don't see how it can be appealing to the public. Bitcoin, the first blockchain, was designed to be public and permissionless. It's difficult to imagine if the next-gen DLT would be private/permissioned.

Except, of course, if the only way to increase DLT's capacity is to make it private/permissioned.

[blckhawk]

Even they could bring it into the public, it's not gonna have that significant impact on Bitcoin's price. Manipulators could however take advantage of such news but it would be only a simple short pump that would reverse immediately.

By saying hybrid you mean by having different systems for different access control preferences. Such as when data is private to small group of companies, they would make use of centralized rather than decentralized blockchain.