Gartner is claiming that 90 per cent of current enterprise blockchain implementations will need to be replaced by 2021 to remain competitive, secure and avoid obsolescence.
The blockchain platform market is composed of fragmented offerings that often overlap or are being used in a complementary fashion, making technology choices confusing for IT decision makers, said Gartner research director, Adrian Lee.
“Compounding this challenge is the fact that blockchain platform vendors typically use messaging that does not link to a target buyer’s use cases and business benefits,” Lee said.
“Transactions, for example, was the term mentioned the most in relation to blockchain followed by ‘secure’ and ‘security.’ While these may be functions of blockchain-enabling technology, buyers are still confused as to how these functions are achieved or what benefits blockchain adds compared to their existing processes,” he said.
Lee said that blockchain platforms are emerging platforms and, at this point, nearly indistinguishable in some cases from core blockchain technology.
“Many CIOs overestimate the capabilities and short-term benefits of blockchain as a technology to help them achieve their business goals thus creating unrealistic expectations when assessing offerings from blockchain platform vendors and service providers.
Gartner forecasts that the business value added by blockchain will grow to slightly more than $176 billion, then surge to exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030.
“Product managers should prepare for rapid evolution, early obsolescence, a shifting competitive landscape, future consolidation of offerings and the potential failure of early stage technologies and functionality in the blockchain platform market,” said Lee.
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