IBM 4Q17 earnings are set for release on Thursday after closing bell, and it's been quite a busy week already for the tech giant. One firm upgraded IBM stock ahead of that earnings report, stating that the upgrade is for the company's growing cloud opportunities. However, the double-upgrade comes the same week as the announcement about the new IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture.
IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture announced
IBM and the Denmark-based shipping giant said this week that they're uniting to expand the use of the blockchain within the shipping industry. The IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture builds upon the partnership the two firms started almost a year ago when they said they were beginning a blockchain-based tracking service for cross-border shipments across the world's oceans.
They two companies decided to create a new entity so that they could market the technologies they built under that partnership, even to transportation companies that compete with Maersk. Further, the IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture is aimed at fast-tracking the development of new technology, management said.
As of now, the IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture doesn't yet have a name, but the two companies did say that it will offer two services in the beginning. The first is a digital pipeline of information for supply lines to be used by all involved companies. The second service to be offered by the IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture is digitization and automation for paper filings that are required for shipping via smart contracts that are based on blockchain technology.
Here's what analysts have to say about the IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture
KeyBanc analyst Arvind Ramnani said in a note to investors that he believes the IBM-Maersk blockchain joint venture offers “significant promise.” He noted that the creation of a separate entity services to reduce conflict of interest and expects it to drive a broader adoption of the ecosystem created by the partnership. He believes it could be just one of many JVs IBM ends up creating across several areas of the blockchain.
