On Nov 2015, Microsoft announced with ConsenSys, the addition of Ethereum Blockchain as a Service (ETH-BaaS) on their Azure platform.
Meanwhile, Eris Industries also have been offering, what appears to be, at first sight, a similar hosted Ethereum platform.
From the marketing collateral, it is difficult to do establish what the key distinctions are between the two platforms. Any one with direct experience using either or both of these platforms can distill what the key differences are?
Best Answer
Microsoft Azure offers a 1-click cloud installation of a full ethereum environment containing a client aswell as the ether.camp integrated developer environment and the blockapps private blockchain environment.
Eris industries develops a free smart contract application plattform. It offers smart contract libraries for subscribers and offers premium features like hosted blockchain environments.
While microsoft simply offers blockchain as yet-another-serverice to lure more customers into their cloud computing portfolio, Eris differs in being a specific ethereum-based and blockchain-focused company offering services only dedicated to that topic.
In addition, you can simply download and install the eris toolchain. It's free. And reading the well-written documentation on the eris website let's you learn a lot about smart contract development.