Microsoft has entered into a partnership with KIND Financial, a California-based technology for cannabis compliance, to acquire government-facing contracts for seed to sale tracking of legalized marijuana.
While this is the first such partnership ventured by Microsoft, KIND has been marketing the company's marijuana tracking software to governments and businesses for about three years now. Henceforth, the company will work on the Redmond tech titan's government cloud, BBC reported.
KIND's software, called Agrisoft Seed to Sale, completes the loop between all marijuana-related regulatory agencies, businesses and financial institutions, The Weed Blog reported. According to a post on the website, the partnership between Microsoft and KIND aims at leveraging the resources of the two companies.
KIND is of the view that Microsoft's cloud platform was the exclusively "designed to meet government standards for the closely regulated cannabis compliance programs," the report stated. Together, they now plan to provide state, county and municipalities with purpose built solutions for tracking and tracing technology for 'seed to sale' in the cannabis industry.
Former senior leader of Colorado's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division Matt D. Cook will serve as 'Special Advisor on Government Matters' for KIND. The report quoted Cook as saying that he feels honored to advise KIND Government Solutions, because it assists governments in dealing with the cannabis compliance issue.
Meanwhile, in an emailed statement, Microsoft told the BBC that the company supported "government customers and partners to help them meet their missions". A spokesman for Microsoft said that KIND Financial is building solutions on their government cloud to facilitate these agencies regulate as well as monitor controlled substances and items, in addition to dealing with compliance with jurisdictional laws and regulations.
While the Redmond tech giant will not deal with day-to-day pot business of KIND, it will help in marketing software developed by KIND by incorporating it into its cloud platform, Azure. According to reports, KIND's Agrisoft Seed to Sale, which tracks plants, sales along with commerce, will be a part of an eight-piece software suite in the Azure Government cloud package.
Currently, Microsoft is struggling to boost its desktop business and, hence, the company has been shifting its focus to the cloud and its Azure platform. While the company's commerce cloud business is on track to exceed a $10 billion annual turnover following its third-quarter earnings, the decision to partner with KIND seems to be prudent.
Watch Microsoft getting into weed business below: