IBM, Maersk Pull the Plug on Blockchain-based TradeLens Shipping Platform
fliptop writes:
Computing giant IBM Corp. and Danish shipping company A.P. Moller - Maersk are discontinuing their blockchain-enabled shipping platform, TradeLens, which was jointly developed by the two companies for tracking shipments and managing supply chains in the container industry. It's expected to go offline by the end of the first quarter of 2023:
"TradeLens was founded on the bold vision to make a leap in global supply chain digitization as an open and neutral industry platform," said Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at Maersk. "Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved."
[...] TradeLens was launched in 2018 as a collaborative project between the two companies using IBM's Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology. It's used to connect shippers, shipping lines, freight forwarders, port and terminal operators, transportation and customs authorities in order to reduce costs by tracking shipping data and documents.
[...] Speaking to SiliconANGLE today, Neeraj Srivastava, co-founder and chief technical officer of DLT Labs, a blockchain firm that develops solutions for fintech and supply chains, argued that TradeLens failed because it spent too much time on hyping itself and too little time on innovation.
"TradeLens' failure was not that the blockchain wasn't worthwhile," said Srivastava. "It's that it spent too much effort on marketing the platform and hyping up its benefits and not enough time developing the technology to deliver on what the company promised. Too much hype is not good."
Maersk press release. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
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