Software giant Microsoft and the recently released cryptocurrency EmerCoin have officially formed a partnership. This partnership will minimally span 2016 and will aim at further developing what Microsoft Azure is calling “Blockchain as a Service”. Together they will work on innovating the field and developing scalable products for their users. A notable effect is the price of EmerCoin, which doubled 1 day after the announcement of the partnership.

What is EmerCoin?

The partnership has had immediate positive effects for EmerCoin, particularly where its value is concerned. EmerCoin’s market cap is currently around 3 million US dollars, with EmerCoin trading for about $0.09 per coin. The coin is also listed on Pay Services, a growing cryptocurrency exchange. A rare opportunity may have been discovered. The option to now invest into EmerCoin may have just gained traction. EmerCoin now has ties to a successful corporation, giving investors a sign of hope for growth.

EmerCoin is a decentralized cryptocurrency that holds many great characteristics similar to Bitcoin. EmerCoin is a hybrid of NameCoin and PPCoin that utilizes both Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake mining. This allows the many great features of both systems to be captured. The partnership is a great growth for EmerCoin, which, in its current state remains relatively unknown. However, the partnership with Microsoft may increase the public use of the currency, which will further grow the price.

Why EmerCoin as a Partner?

Now you may be asking yourself: why did Microsoft partner with EmerCoin instead of some other cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Dogecoin? While other cryptocurrencies could have brought many benefits to such a partnership, EmerCoin has the drive and the intent to contribute to innovation. The partnership has created a spike in the price of EmerCoin.

Simon Dixon, CEO of BnkToTheFuture told Cointelegraph:

"It is a great achievement for an AltCoin to be included in the MicroSoft Blockchain as a service program. We were very pleased to see Microsoft work with Factom, one of our portfolio companies too showing a clear signal that Microsoft is willing to take risk and speculate their reputation on the Blockchain sector. I believe that it is a smarter move to use the Bitcoin Blockchain like Factom has for increased security, but it is also great to see alternative Blockchains being included in Microsoft's offering. An announcement worthy of a big price spike rewarding the early believers."

EmerCoin already has a lasting history of developing new and innovative technology such as a distributed advertising network, identification proofing, security, and authentication among other things. Emercoin believes that they have an edge due to their simple and clean interface.

Oleg Khovayko, CTO of EmerCoin told Cointelegraph:

“Blockchain is heavy—this is trust. and difficult to understand by many people, who work in other areas. BAAS allows us to provide Azure customers real services, needed for them, without overloading their computers and brains with blockchain-specific detail. Thus, these services will be easy to integrate into frontend-services (like blogs). so, we are expecting to decrease the barrier for popularization and using blockchain-based technologies outside of cryptocurrency user cluster.”

Blockchain as a Service

One of the newest services released by Azure is called “Blockchain as a Service”. This will allow users to simply build cloud-computed Blockchain applications. Prior to the partnership between Microsoft and EmerCoin, Azure had to first announce the partnership with ConsenSys to develop the “Blockchain as a Service” developer tools etc.

In a press release, Marley Gray, Director of Technology Strategy at Microsoft said:

“Microsoft is excited to team up with ConsenSys for in Azure’s lead offering of Ethereum Blockchain-as-a-Service. Our enterprise clients will have the ability to deploy private and semi-private or consortium blockchain networks, as well as public Ethereum nodes with a single click on Azure. Through BlockApps Strato and Ether.Camp we’ll have developer tools and applications so enterprise can begin to understand the power behind blockchain technology.”

The service has a clear goal in mind: integrate blockchain networks for enterprise applications. This ideal appears to offer only improvements in features. However, some experts still remain a little sceptical of the platform’s functionality.

Vitalik Buterin, Co-Founder of Ethereum and the Ether cryptocurrency told Cointelegraph:

“The thing with the Azure integrations right now is that they are still quite basic; it's just a very convenient way to run a node on top of a VPS. It's quite low-effort for Microsoft to add more of these. The impression that I am getting from the ground is that in order to go to the next level and be really useful for mainstream individual and corporate users, these blockchain cloud services are going to need to do quite a bit more work on top of the platform base, though I am sure that both Microsoft and other companies are eager to start taking those next steps.”

This partnership creates a whole system of newfound potential. The service creates untold possibilities in every market share and industry. Due to the very large network of Azure users, the partnership may even produce exponential benefits and features for their customers and the world. You may want to look into retrieving some EmerCoin while they are still cheap, because massive growth could hit at any time.

Are you interested in the theme of this article? Look at our ratings of blockchain cryptocurrencies in top of Cryptocurrencies.