Following an official announcement on October 23, software development company Oracle Corp. has launched a suite of blockchain-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications built through its own Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service. The product is designed to boost transparency and traceability in supply chains.
Founded in 1977, Oracle is one of the largest and most established vendors in the business software market. The company’s annual revenue stands at nearly $40 billion, and it is currently the second-largest software development company per the Global 2018 Forbes List.
So, What Does the New Oracle Blockchain-Based Product Do?
Named “Oracle Blockchain Applications Cloud,” the product contains 4 different apps: Lot Lineage and Provenance, Intelligent Track and Trace, Warranty and Usage Tracking, and Intelligent Cold Chain.
The product seeks to speed up product delivery and improve overall customer satisfaction. It also gives users the opportunity to track a product’s authenticity and reduce paper waste.
Previously, Oracle intended to launch a platform-as-a-service product along with decentralized ledger-based applications. The company had been working with the Nigerian government, which is reportedly seeking new ways to use blockchain technology for recording and documenting both import duties and customs.
Release of the product was scheduled for May 2018 before plans were ultimately changed to make a software-based application 2 months later in July. What followed was a series of trials involving government, business, and banking clients.
This new product looks to focus instead on transaction efficiency and authenticating companies’ supply chains while using Hyperledger Fabric as the basis.
Each App Plays a Different Role
The 4 apps contained within the Cloud were unveiled and demonstrated at Oracle’s OpenWorld conference earlier this week.
Oracle’s senior vice president of Supply Chain & Manufacturing Cloud Applications, Rick Jewell, explained:
These blockchain applications work seamlessly with existing Oracle Cloud Applications and are out-of-the-box ready with pre-built integrations and business network templates for common business processes.
Each of the applications play to different aspects of Oracle’s operations and strengths, and work together to draw information regarding the company’s present business protocols to see how they can be improved.
Working Together for the Greater Good
Vice president of Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain at Oracle Atul Mahamuni states:
Customers struggle with how, exactly, to go from concepts like smart contracts, distributed ledger and cryptography to solving specific business problems, so what we do is we get events and insights from IoT systems, as well as from supply chain ERP data, and we get those insights and translations from all of this and then put them into the blockchain and then do the correlations and artificial intelligence machine-learning algorithms on top of those transactions.
Some of Oracle’s applications have already garnered the attention of other businesses, which have been using them to monitor and improve various aspects of their procedures.
Beer maker Alpha Acid Brewing in Belmont, California, for example, is presently utilizing Oracle’s Intelligence Track and Trace blockchain application to follow ingredients like malt, yeast, and hops along a supply chain.
Kyle Bozicevic, owner of Alpha Acid, explains:
Consumers are better informed than ever before and are increasingly interested in what is in the products they consume. We can now track materials and premium ingredients from our suppliers and analyze sensor data from the production process for each batch.
Recently, rumors swelled of a potential partnership between Oracle and Tron after representatives attended a meeting at the cryptocurrency platform’s headquarters in San Francisco, though at the time of writing, the nature of the meeting is unclear.
