Microsoft and ConsenSys partner to bring Ethereum blockchain to 3 million developers

On March 30, 2016, at the 2016 Microsoft Developer Conference, Microsoft and ConsenSys announced a partnership that will allow millions of Microsoft developers to use the Ethereum blockchain to develop decentralized applications. The service will be officially launched at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on the 30th.

By directly integrating Ethereum smart contract writing language Solidity into the Microsoft Visual Studio (VS) platform, developers can develop, test and deploy decentralized applications (dapps) in one integrated environment.

But don’t think that ConsenSys’ partnership with Microsoft is just about making money, at least not right now.

In a conversation with CoinDesk, ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin said increasing the number of developers using distributed ledger technology is the first and most important step in reshaping social, economic and political systems.

Joe Lubin

Lubin, who is also a co-founder of Ethereum, said:

“One of our biggest interests and missions is to drive adoption of Ethereum in all its forms, whether it’s public, private, or consortium.”

The partnership between ConsenSys and Microsoft will allow developers using the Solidity programming language to run programs on the Ethereum network, also known as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Using Ethereum's Solidity language, developers will be able to write applications using self-executing smart contracts that can theoretically perform any range of business transactions that programmers can imagine.

Ethereum’s cryptocurrency, ether, will power the program. The price of ether is currently around $11.6, and the total market value is over $900 million. In comparison, Bitcoin’s market value is $6.3 billion.

Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) transactions — more precisely, smart contract executions — can be performed using either the public or private version of the Ethereum blockchain, and will be recorded in an archive that ConsenSys describes as “irrefutable and authoritative.”

Ethereum Development Space

Although Ethereum is still accelerating, it is undeniable that its adoption has been slowing down.

For example, according to data analysis, the number of Ethereum repositories on GitHub (which reflects the frequency with which developers use distributed ledgers in their projects) has been growing exponentially since January 2014, from less than 10 at the beginning to 460 at the end of 2015. According to the latest survey results, this number has more than doubled in the past three months to 997 repositories.

But if compared to Bitcoin, there are currently 7,647 Bitcoin repositories on GitHub, so there is still a lot of room for Ethereum to develop before it can become a serious competitor to Bitcoin.

Marley Gray, Microsoft's head of blockchain business development and strategy, believes that the developers gathered by Microsoft will change the balance of power between Ethereum and Bitcoin. Because in July 2015, when Microsoft released the latest version of Visual Studio (VS), the number of registered developers on the platform exceeded 3.2 million. The number of VS tool downloads reached 13 million times in the past year.

Gray said in a statement:

“The integration of Ethereum and VS will provide teams working on blockchain smart contracts of any size and complexity with an enterprise-grade solution with advanced capabilities.”

While the ConsenSys CEO said he does not plan to make money directly from his partnership with Microsoft, he made it clear in a conversation with CoinDesk that his work to make it easier for developers to build DApps is not an act of charity.

Joe Lubin said:

“ConsenSys is a for-profit entity and we are developing products on the Ethereum platform. We are building professional services and consulting.”

Symbiotic relationship

The ConsenSys-Microsoft deal is a true partnership, with neither party paying any fees to the other.

Both companies have been able to benefit from the collaboration. In December 2015, ConsenSys was the first company to join Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform service. The Azure platform is designed to allow other companies to experiment with distributed ledger technology in a sandbox environment.

The cooperation between ConsenSys and Microsoft finally enabled Microsoft to gain a foothold in the blockchain industry, and ConsenSys also received sincere cooperation from this public company with a market value of $427 billion.

Joe Lubin believes their collaboration will continue beyond this.

Lubin described VS to CoinDesk:

"VS is one of the best software developer tools in the world. Our collaboration is like adding words to the song (various development programs)."

Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/microsoft-ethereum-3-million-developers/
By Michael del Castillo
Compiled by: Kyle
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/microsoft-consensys-ethereum)