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EMERGENT By Martin Vilaboy Blockchain Down to Business Early enterprise applications emerge for blockchain technology W e’re still likely a few years away from when we start seeing truly legitimate instances of “blockchain” appearing on partner providers’ sales sheets. Looking at Gartner’s hype cycle estimates, we’re probably still a few years away from any significant adoption of business blockchain solutions by even the largest of enterprises, as well as government, education or health- care. Blockchain is not easy, after all, requiring specialized expertise and ample investment. At the same time, blockchain for business has brushed off the ashes from its initial overhype and is starting to show its true worth through practical, operational applications. Familiar names are reporting successful deployments or showing serious interest. PCCW, for instance, is using blockchain for completely automated intercar- rier billing and settlement. And the emergence of BaaS, or blockchain- as-a-service, which removes many of the mysteries and headaches of this complex technology, also is likely to encourage experimentation and adoption. It should be noted, of course, that Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing division recently announced it would be shutting down its six-year-old blockchain-as- a-service program this autumn. But the space still includes influential players such as AWS, IBM, Oracle, SAP and VMware, among others. In turn, we are getting a clearer picture of the initial uses case and early opportunities within blockchain for business and the leading-edge service offerings that could soon become available to providers and distributors of communications and IT business services. And typical of most new technologies, the opportunities come to light through a better under- standing of what blockchain does well compared to the alternatives an enter- prise decision-maker will have at its disposal, if not already deployed. Make no mistake, blockchain is breakthrough stuff, and it will lead to (already is making possible) totally new forms of services and commerce. But for most enterprises initially, buyers often will measure it as another “replacement service,” and it better be good because it can be expensive. But again, like many other new and disruptive communications technology, value is measured by its ability to save 8 CHANNEL V ISION | July - August 2021 time and money and improve and accelerate networks and networking. In other words, blockchain is not unique in that it is a “distributed ledger technol- ogy” or DLT. But it does bring to the table unique and interesting ways that data and digital information can be stored, secured, exchanged and authenticated across a distributed ledger. And not surprisingly, a big differentiator comes down to geometry. Unlike traditional and centralized data- bases that store data in rows, columns and files, blockchain stores data in blocks that