Microsoft Azure, a cloud services platform, has recently been joined by four companies operating in the blockchain sphere, including BitPay, Manifold Technology, LibraTax and Emercoin.

This was announced on Monday on the company’s blog by Marley Grey, Director and strategist for the Microsoft Center of Excellence for Financial Services at the Microsoft Technology Center in New York City. This means that the Microsoft Azure users will now be able to access the services of the four blockchain companies.

BitPay is a bitcoin payment platform. The company is trusted by over 60,000 businesses and organizations worldwide, claims its website. BitPay allows clients to accept payment in bitcoins and instantaneously converts them into fiat currencies, thus avoiding volatility risks.

Manifold Technology, with the help of its Manifold Liquidity Platform, provides private high-security blockchains for financial institutions and their customers together with real-time analytics, says the company’s website. “Manifold Liquidity Platform is a powerful, private Blockchain, capable of unprecedented transaction speed and throughput,” writes Grey.

LibraTax is an accounting, reporting and tax-compliance layer for blockchain-based organizations. LibraTax makes it possible to effectively evaluate the financial impact of a business and remain in compliance with tax laws.

Emercoin is a leading blockchain platform specializing in innovative services, such as emcSTREAM (micropayment library for streaming media), emcLNX (a peer-to-peer text-advertisement network), and others. These two services, together with six others, will be included in the Azure BaaS (Blockchain-as-a-Service) program, writes Emercoin’s website in a post devoted to the company’s partnership with Microsoft.

Microsoft Azure is a quickly growing platform interested in the blockchain technology. In October it declared the acquisition of Ethereum’s BaaS toolkit, and in December the project was joined by the blockchain companies Factom, Eris and CoinPrism.

Andrew Levich