• ABI Research announced Microsoft has snagged the top spot as the leading Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform. The tech giant is followed closely by IBM.
• The Blockchain-as-a-Service competitive assessment ranked all 11 vendors that are competing in the BaaS space at the moment including Alibaba, Amazon, Cisco, SAP, and Huawei to name a few.
• Assessment of the vendors competing in the BaaS space were based on a vast range of innovation metrics.

In a report compiled by ABI Research, Microsoft earned the top spot as the leading Blockchain-as-a-Service platform. ABI Research is a market-foresight advisory firm that provides strategic guidance on disruptive technology.

ABI Research’s assessment of Blockchain as a service

The 11 vendors assessed by ABI were: Alibaba, Amazon, Baidu, Huawei, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, HPE, SAP, Tencent, and Oracle. They were ranked on a variety of factors.

Each vendor was analysed based on the following innovation metrics: proof of concepts and pilots, market penetration, and ecosystem support.

In addition, their implementation metrics such as primary features, integration with their own solutions, platform diversity, and developer resources were also taken into account.

Microsoft edges out IBM

Microsoft’s involvement in blockchain projects started in 2015. Currently, they are offering a host of services on their Azure cloud computing platform. Their most notable service is their Azure Blockchain Workbench.

While Microsoft sits on the top spot, IBM is not far behind. In fact, both firms are considered leagues ahead compared to other vendors when it comes to BaaS offerings.

Michaela Menting, ABI Research’s research director stated that the advent of cloud offerings in the space is a clear manifestation that blockchain technology is already ripe for productisation.

Menting added that both IBM and Microsoft are capitalising on the various pilots and proof of concepts that have been tested in the last 2 years. She concluded by saying:

“While IBM has some of the more advanced pilots to date, Microsoft leads on the implementation front, with a broad range of platform choices and deep integration with its existing cloud services.”

$7 Billion Market Forecast

Kash Rangan, a research analyst at Bank of America predicted the BaaS market will quickly become a $7 billion market. His forecast of the BaaS market’s future worth assumed that 2 percent of servers are allocated to running blockchain with a yearly cost of US$5, 500 per server.

He further stated that the multi-billion dollar opportunities will be materialised by marrying blockchain and the current cloud computing infrastructures and improving some aspects of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms.

Rangan added that Microsoft’s cloud computing platform is an example of a service that benefited from the BaaS integration.

Another vendor that he highlighted is Amazon, which he noted will surely benefit from blockchain technology both as an online retailer and a vendor of cloud services.