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5 Things an Entrepreneur Needs to Know about Blockchain development

PixelCrayons — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 10:21:31 +0000

Blockchain is a technology which exploded with the success of Bitcoin and the subsequent cryptocurrency revolution. While initially it was merely known as the source-code of cryptocurrency, the world has now realized its potential beyond the realm of virtual currencies and with each new day, we get to see news about innovations made by blockchain development companies.

However, while most talk about how Blockchain can do great things, nobody seems to talk or think about what it actually takes to do for something related to blockchain. Blockchain is one thing, and the process of developing a blockchain, i.e., Blockchain Development is another.

6 Benefits of Blockchain development to Industries

https://youtu.be/mrzB5B1Ezlk

You may ask like a grumpy child would do, “What do I have to do with Blockchain development? I’ll just hire a Blockchain development company for the development process. All I want is a Blockchain in my business.” Right? Well, this is perhaps the case for most business owners unaware of everything it actually takes for Blockchain development. The same also applies for those who may not know about a few limitations of this technology.

So here’s a rundown of 5 things you need to know about Blockchain development. This isn’t a rundown presented from a developers’ point of view, but in fact something to be well-known to business owners, entrepreneurs and managers.

1. You can’t fit Blockchain to everything

If you ever Google the term Blockchain, which i’m sure you have. Chances are that you might have come across a myriad blogs discussing potential use-cases of Blockchain. What many might not realize is; while Blockchain certainly can be used beyond cryptocurrency, it still has a boundary beyond which it doesn’t have feasible use cases.

Ideally, a business must choose to invest in Blockchain development only if they have any of the following requirements:

The need to create a decentralized network: Most business of today wouldn’t want that. The customers definitely would.

The need to maintain transparency of business activities: Once again, most businesses wouldn’t want it unless they aim to boost loyalty and goodwill at the cost of revenue.

The need to protect data/prove data tampering: One of the key benefits of Blockchain. A change in one dataset affects the whole network. There’s almost no way for anyone to tamper data within a blockchain and get away with it.

2. Storing Data in Blockchain isn’t so easy

Since most Blockchain are designed for cryptocurrency, the most common models for storing data are in the form of transactions. For example, if “A sends money to B” is a transaction, the data stored on the blockchain would include the address of both A & B along with the amount of money sent by one party to another.

The problem here is that when data isn’t of a transactional nature, the common Blockchain networks aren’t too useful. However, there is a solution to this. But I won’t go too deep to make it easier to understand. The solution is the use of protocols which can be used to attach data to a transaction.

However, these are not utilized by all Blockchains. There are several other methods, but each method either takes high costs or simply cannot store large amounts of data. Fortunately enough, some unique forms of storing data; such as those which involve storing raw data in the form of hashes; could do well to balance costs and get the work done.

Another major concern when it comes to data storage is the fact that any additional data added to a blockchain network isn’t just stored at one place. Instead, it is distributed to all participating nodes in a Blockchain which requires some amount of hardware power and resources.

Also read: How can Smart Contracts in Blockchain Redefine Value exchange

3. Some things are Meant to be Deleted

One of the major promises of Blockchain is that of its secure nature, wherein no transactions and data can be deleted. This creates a set of societal problems, one of which is that the personal and confidential data of users is sent to all nodes within the network. This data is of an encrypted nature so cannot be accessed so easily. Additionally, in public Blockchain networks, this can be acceptable given its completely decentralized nature.

But the problem here is that most businesses won’t work on a public blockchain! These would run on private blockchains of a mildly centralized nature. And if you’re a business owner, your enterprise would be subject to certain guidelines of the government and other interfering parties.

Take the new GDPR rules for example; which has forced a myriad companies to either remove, or allow users to manually remove some of their own data if they want to. If government or customer influenced CSR guidelines are enforced on Blockchain networks, it would only create a new set of problems for businesses to deal with.

Complete transparency is something that is debated now, and will be debated for a long time to come.

4. Blockchain takes Energy and Resources, a lot of it

To put across the point simply, Blockchain stores its data within all nodes in the network. The validation, transfer and authentication of data on Blockchain networks not only takes time, but also consumers large amounts of hardware power and energy resources. It has been claimed that keeping the Bitcoin network running itself has consumed as much energy as 159 of the world’s nations!

But that was the state of cryptocurrency working in a public Blockchain network, and the same problem applies with every public Blockchain. In case of privatized blockchains which is what most organizations will use, the nodes are deployed internally and thus may not consume too much power. However, it still does require a lot of resources, and that can’t be ignored.

Also read: The best ways of implementing Blockchain Technology beyond Cryptocurrency

5. Blockchain is Slow

Perhaps one of the most important facts to understand about Blockchain is that it is slow. Yes, it employs new and revolutionary ideas such as proof-of-state and proof-of-work. Yes, these are revolutionary in terms of creating a transparent and decentralised environment. But the problem that lies beneath such promises is a slow and steady processing capability which consumes an incredible amount of energy resources.

With the current progress in Blockchain development, Blockchain is nowhere near the speed, scalability and efficiency levels of the existing transaction and financial systems. The need for cryptographic verification of transactions in proof-of-state, and the need for power consuming hardware to implement proof-of-work make Blockchain a slow and steady, but a powerful turtle which can win the race; but in this particular case, the rabbit won’t halt its pace soon enough.
So does your business really need Blockchain development today?
The running rabbit of the existing transactional, database storage and financial systems is yet to get complacent of its power. So the turtle of Blockchain still needs time, and a lot of development before it catches up. However, this isn’t to say that an investment in Blockchain development isn’t worth it. But that it isn’t a cake to be tasted by everyone.

Some businesses are still finding it useful, and a few have been able to make an extremely good use of the technology. But in the end, if your brand or business really the three essentials of transparency, decentralization and security; only then you should, and must make use of Blockchain development from a top Blockchain development company today.

What does the future hold for these custom software development trends?

PixelCrayons — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 08:44:17 +0000

Back during the Industrial Revolution after the 17th century, the fate of newly developing companies was determined by their ability to scale up their operations, harness, and process the maximum number of resources for the highest output. Today, the Industrial revolution has long gone to give way to the age of information where Big Data Analytics and other methods of information processing rule the roost.

In the 21st century, what makes an enterprise successful is its ability to collect and crunch high quantity of data into high-quality information, and making use of it for understanding the present and predicting the future.

Artificial Intelligence, Mixed Reality, Blockchain Development, and IoT development are few among the most sought-after custom software development trends by the biggest enterprises and emerging startups today. So what does the future hold for these software development technologies and every top custom software development company today? More importantly, what role would software consulting companies and other IT experts play in the progress of custom software development trends in the future? I will try to answer the question by picking up these technologies one by one and decoding certain aspects which make it relevant, and a few which degrade it. Hope you enjoy this one, so here goes:

Can Machine Learning make Artificial Intelligence more effective than humans?

In a recent development, eCommerce major Amazon had to scrap an AI toolcreated to assist in recruiting practices through Machine Learning and data analysis. The reason? Well, this tool apparently had a problem with women, which led to more selection of males as compared to the opposite gender for recruitment in technical posts.

The lesson to be learned from this case is that there’s a long long way to go for AI and ML, as a whole to get as good as human intelligence. What makes the task so difficult for these custom software development services is that we perhaps make a mistake in understanding ourselves, and this gets reflected in the technologies and services created by custom software development companies!

Take, for example, this particular case of Amazon’s AI tool having a bias against women. This tool and many such tools may be created by the top custom software development company today and made to work and improve through machine learning. But while it can recognize patterns, data and identify the best form of action for different scenarios. It fails to recognize and interpret a bias which perhaps, is one which humans have, and not these tools themselves. More on that later.

While it may seem that the philosophy of the human species as a whole is objective in nature. That, unfortunately, isn’t the case. The collective human mind itself has several psychological biases which affect its decision making. Take, for example, the simple yet complex debate on Corporate social responsibility and ethics which has been lasting for decades now.

The human species still fails to understand what is needed the most; profitability of enterprises? Or the satisfaction of the consumers of goods and services? The human species in itself is a biased one, so how does it expect its own creation to be objective? Yes, the AI tool developed by the custom software development company division of Amazon considered women inappropriate for technical jobs. But isn’t that the reality of the field itself?

It is when questions such as these are asked that you get a deeper understanding about the most likely answer; which is that AI and other custom software development trends won’t ever replace human intelligence unless humans are able to remove their own biases, something which is simply impossible! And if it still manages to do so, then it definitely won’t be for the benefit of our species.

A better way to understand and develop AI for custom software development companies is to consider it as an assistance to human intelligence rather than a replacement for it. Machine Learning development and other subsets of Artificial Intelligence can do a lot which humans can not, yet it could never replace the value of human emotions for better or worse.

Would AR/VR become the new mediums of customer-business interaction?

The Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) markets are expected to stand at a value of 60.55 Billion USD and 34.08 Billion USD by the year 2023. These figures reveal a significant lead for the valuation of AR in the future. The reason is that AR development has much more potential for growth and application in comparison to VR.

The growth of VR might perhaps get stunted in future because of its limited application. Unlike AR, VR puts its users into a different world altogether with no glimpse of reality. This finds its most suitable applications in the gaming and film-making industry, and not so much anywhere else.

But one field where both these augmented platforms find the best use-case is in its utility as a medium of customer-business interaction. AR can be put into use in the near future in forms of a guide accessible through smartphones for navigation, used to identify new places, or perhaps as an instruction guide for assembly or installation of appliances.

VR, on the other hand, could redefine worker training and eLearning practices used in today’s organizations and institutions.

Also read: How can AR, IoT, Blockchain and Chatbots redefine Customer Experience

Can Blockchain and IoT redefine business and service networks?

Blockchain and IoT are two of the most hyped advancements in Software Development. While Blockchain can bring new levels of transparency and decentralization in the functioning of businesses, IoT is perhaps the most valuable player in the game. It’s essentially a technology which can link all technologies together! Thus it can be combined with anything and produce incredible results.
We are probably headed towards a future where interconnected networks carry user information and play the lead role in the delivery of products and services to end consumers through the medium of secured and transparent networks.

Conclusion

From the Industrial Revolution to the age of Information, we are headed towards a future which may well be defined as the “The age of networking”. A time when everything is linked with another and the change in the pattern of one element can drastically affect another. Little glimpses of the same are already visible in the real world.

For a young entrepreneur aspiring to create a profitable startup, its impossible to make an idea work with a singular focus on one aspect. In the age of information, every bit of knowledge needs to be passed on from one place to another for the sake of survival. In the new forthcoming era, such an exchange will be a necessity.

As a business owner/future entrepreneur, the onus is on you to either take advantage of all available opportunities in software development services and technologies or fall prey to the competitors. Working with an IT partner such as top custom software development companycould perhaps give a jumpstart.

So are you looking for the best IT services provider to fulfill your ambitions as an entrepreneur? PixelCrayons is one of the leading custom software development companies in Indiawith over 4,800 satisfied clients and a 97% customer retention rate. It has a proficient team of developers working on the latest custom software development trends in Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT and AR. With up to 60% off on development costs and a 100% money-back guarantee, PixelCrayons can take your business aspirations to the greatest heights and prepare it for the future!