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Walmart Canada Uses Blockchain to Solve Supply-Chain Challenges

7 points by dade 4y ago

dsq 4y ago
Not to be that guy, but: What is the unique selling point to choose blockchain over other solutions already existing in the market such as Tibco, or even a centralized database containing the various business rules and logic? After all, there already is implicit trust in the system described, and no decentralization. Or perhaps I haven't understood correctly.
- dade 4y ago
  I am speculating here...but maybe they made every carrier and vendor a client and node of the blockchain network. From which they can add their own transactions as they happen and the entire chain will carry an accurate representation of the transactions from every carrier. Making it easy to collate in almost real-time.
- dade 4y ago
  > After all, there already is implicit trust in the system described, and no decentralization. Or perhaps I haven't understood correctly. I also don't have all the answers, but thinking more about it, maybe it is the case, that even though there is implicit trust, the third-party freight carriers might not want to depend on a centralised system wholly managed by Walmart? This could be due to opaqueness of such a system.
- vba616 4y ago
  Enterprisey stuff has had "blockchain" options for a while now. The selling point is you can say "blockchain". Blockchain blockchain blockchain. Oracle has a blockchain for you, and a cloud, and most likely a cloudy blockchain. And it runs much faster without that pesky distributed consensus. https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/newft/oracle-blockchain-table.html https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/1... It's a table. You can use SQL to query it. Now, even more buzzword compliant. This is the way to go, because your entire IT budget already goes to Oracle licensing fees.
nikolay 4y ago
Rube Goldberg machine.
mdaniel 4y ago
I first heard about this in the latest Freakonomics episode: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-the-crypto-crash-mean-the-blockchain-is-over/#transcript https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-the-crypto-crash-mean-... although it was pretty hand-wavey (I guess as is to be expected in a general audience podcast)

7 points by dade 4y ago

dsq 4y ago

Not to be that guy, but: What is the unique selling point to choose blockchain over other solutions already existing in the market such as Tibco, or even a centralized database containing the various business rules and logic? After all, there already is implicit trust in the system described, and no decentralization. Or perhaps I haven't understood correctly.

dade 4y ago
I am speculating here...but maybe they made every carrier and vendor a client and node of the blockchain network. From which they can add their own transactions as they happen and the entire chain will carry an accurate representation of the transactions from every carrier. Making it easy to collate in almost real-time.
dade 4y ago
> After all, there already is implicit trust in the system described, and no decentralization. Or perhaps I haven't understood correctly. I also don't have all the answers, but thinking more about it, maybe it is the case, that even though there is implicit trust, the third-party freight carriers might not want to depend on a centralised system wholly managed by Walmart? This could be due to opaqueness of such a system.
vba616 4y ago
Enterprisey stuff has had "blockchain" options for a while now. The selling point is you can say "blockchain". Blockchain blockchain blockchain. Oracle has a blockchain for you, and a cloud, and most likely a cloudy blockchain. And it runs much faster without that pesky distributed consensus. https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/newft/oracle-blockchain-table.html https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/1... It's a table. You can use SQL to query it. Now, even more buzzword compliant. This is the way to go, because your entire IT budget already goes to Oracle licensing fees.

nikolay 4y ago

Rube Goldberg machine.

mdaniel 4y ago

I first heard about this in the latest Freakonomics episode: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-the-crypto-crash-mean-the-blockchain-is-over/#transcript https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-the-crypto-crash-mean-... although it was pretty hand-wavey (I guess as is to be expected in a general audience podcast)