Is blockchain-as-a-service the next big thing?

The next big thing in blockchain is, in fact, really really big. At least in terms of who’s driving the initiative. While blockchain has been around since 2008 (only a few years if you’re human, but effectively centuries for a technology), it’s now reached the phase where ecosystem-level companies like Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, and Oracle are moving to drive enablement in their direction via a blockchain-as-a-service.

For those of us who have been in the tech domain long enough to gain some perspective, this is the same process all major companies (including the ones just mentioned)  follow when a technology starts to heat up (We need a standard! Based on our technology!). This happened with operating systems, then mobility platforms, and so on. The thing that is different in this case is that the direct business value add of blockchain has not really been spelled out to a non-technical user.

This is a vibrant and dynamic space if you’re a developer, but if you run a line of business that could benefit from the application of blockchain, you are pretty much out of luck at the moment. Can blockchain pass the “Einstein Test”? That is, can you explain dense, complicated technology to a non-technical user in one minute? If not, then either 1) you’re too far in the weeds, or 2) the technology is still early in the maturation cycle and the only ones who really get it are developers – who are several steps removed from the real world.  

If, on the other hand, the answer is yes, it means you have a not-technical use case that shows not only benefits, but value associated with business rather than technology drivers. Which means either 1) it’s been massaged enough that Marketing can get their arms around it or 2) the effect is so obvious it doesn’t require an explanation.

The ultimate goal with any technology is to become pervasive and invisible. It’s always there, and it always works. Someone once asked me what programming language was used to create Amazon’s e-commerce site, to which I replied “Who cares? As far as I’m concerned its one-click”. The program language supporting Amazon is not directly related to the generation of revenue, but the value associated with  enabling impulse purchases via one click? Yeah, lets do more of that.

So the takeaway here is not that blockchain is available as a service (it’s important to a lot of people, but not the ones who can write really big checks). The more strategic aspect is how are these gigantic corporations going to enable an army of smaller companies to build out applications using blockchain services that can be compelling to non-technical users?  I’m seeing a lot of support for driving improvements in the core fabric of blockchain, but less activity at the application (business) level. If this is going to live up to its expectations, companies need to embrace the “Why”, rather than the “How”, which takes you out of the technology domain and into how end users make money. Once that locks into place, blockchain will in fact start to change the world.