Synechron joins Microsoft Azure Blockchain Council
Microsoft has admitted Synechron into its ‘Azure Blockchain Council’. The global financial services consulting firm becomes one of the first members of the ’matchmaker’ for Blockchain technology inspired concepts.
After threatening to break into the financial mainstream along with a number of other functions they can adapt to, Blockchain technologies have become essential areas of investment for technology firms looking to profit from digital disruption. Existing and prospective clients of prominent consultancies are, meanwhile, beginning to investigate initial coin offerings (ICOs) – the process by which public Blockchain technologies can be leveraged to create custom cryptocurrencies that are subsequently sold to fund projects.
In a bid to tap into the potential of Blockchain, Microsoft has established a dedicated ‘Azure Blockchain Council’. The council includes companies which develop applications using Blockchain technology on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The select group of Microsoft partners will now work together to build, deploy, and manage Blockchain applications on Azure.
While the exact details of firms who are party to this new project remain unclear, with Microsoft being cautious about revealing any additional members, Synechron, a financial services consulting firm which launched a Blockchain accelerator program last year, along with a number of Financial Innovation centres across the world in 2017, has revealed itself as the first member of the council. CEO Faisal Husain, meanwhile, picked up an award at the FTF Technology Innovation awards for FinTech Person of the Year. According to the firm, Synechron was chosen as a council member because of this proven track record in developing Blockchain applications on Ethereum, Quorum, Corda, and Hyperledger platforms.
Synechron’s 8,000-person global team of specialised financial services consultants, developers and front-end UX and CX design experts allows production-ready Blockchain applications to be built anywhere in the world. As members of the new alliance, Synechron will service requests for proposals (RFPs), announce shared proof of concepts, and promote new Blockchain capabilities. The firm will also have direct access to Microsoft’s engineering team and influence Microsoft’s future Blockchain offerings.
New Partnership
“We are delighted to have been chosen by Microsoft to be a founding member of the Blockchain Partner Council. By bringing together the most influential Blockchain innovators in the market today, this council will take the transformative power of Blockchain to a new, global platform. Developing innovative, real-world solutions using technology drives everything we do, and we look forward to sharing our expertise with Microsoft as we help build groundbreaking Blockchain applications on the Azure cloud,” said Diana Kearns-Manolatos, Senior Director, Marketing, Synechron.
Ausaf Ahmad, a One Commercial Partner at Microsoft, meanwhile remarked, ”We are pleased Synechron has joined the Microsoft Azure Blockchain Council, bringing unique expertise and innovative technology to Microsoft Azure Blockchain customers in the financial services industry. Each council member has dedicated Blockchain practice, and commitments to build and launch projects in production in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. The council will drive our open, multi-platform, partner ecosystem led strategy of empowering businesses to build with Blockchain and create new business value.”
When pushed for news of further members of the programme, meanwhile, Microsoft remained secretive. "We're going to allow the additional partners to announce their membership when they're ready, and we do expect more members to join," a spokesperson said.
