Microsoft is closing its Blockchain as a service offering on Azure

Microsoft has announced that it will stop its coroporate Azure Blockchain service in September of 2021 and will no longer accept new deployments. According to an article on CoinTelegraph no official explanation was provided.

The announcement which was made in a low key post on Microsoft documentation site informed all current customers to migrate to alternate services such as Conensys Quorum Blockchain services. This manes that large corporate customers who use Azure Blockchain include J.P. Morgan, GE Aviation, Singapore Airlines, Starbucks, and Xbox will have to find alternatives.

Microsoft’s Azure Blockchain is six years old and developed from a sandbox style service in 2015 on Ethereum in partnership with ConsenSys, before it was offered as a fully managed Blockchain-as-a-Service, or BaaS, preview in late 2019. Microsoft’s original goal for Azure was to create a certified blockchain marketplace giving customers the “ability to discover blockchain technologies and value added services.”