Microsoft licenses cloud services to monitor legalized marijuana sales

Reviews, company announces partnership with Kind Financial, a Los Angeles firm that sells computer systems to governments that track legalized marijuana sales

Microsoft, the famously conservative company best-known for producing office software like Windows, has taken the unexpected step of entering the burgeoning industry of marijuana.

The company, founded by Bill Gates, announced a partnership on Thursday with Kind Financial, a Los Angeles firm that sells computer systems to governments that track legalized marijuana sales. 

Microsoft, which is headquartered in Washington, a state where recreational cannabis is now legal, is licensing Kind to sell Microsoft cloud services to authorities to monitor sales – rather than becoming directly involved in the trade itself.

Kind, founded in 2013, sells pot tracking software to growers, sellers and governments. But even the cannabis company recognizes the foundations of its business is controversial in some quarters.

Its website is straight-laced and includes no images of the multi-tipped leaf synonymous with getting high. And as CEO David Dinenberg stressed repeatedly during a brief interview, “We absolutely do not touch the plant.”

However, Microsoft, has still created a milestone in America’s slow progression towards accepting marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law. For that reason, many banks won’t work with companies involved in the regulated pot industry.

Some 25 states allow the sale of marijuana in certain circumstances, mostly with a prescription or license from a doctor. At least four states plan to vote this fall on following Washington, Oregon and Colorado in permitting recreational use of the drug.

“It’s a pretty substantial day of legitimacy, I believe, for the industry as a whole,” said Dinenberg. In the past, he’s explored partnerships with companies who wound up being “a little apprehensive to hear what the mainstream client would think”. Click here to relax animals for kids

Kind will pursue government pot compliance contracts by pitching Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. Microsoft’s government sales team will work with Kind inbidding on those contracts, Dinenberg said.

Kind and Microsoft already have bid on a contract in Puerto Rico, which began allowing medical use of marijuana this year, Dinenberg said.

“Kind agreed that Azure Government is the only cloud platform designed to meet government standards for the closely regulated cannabis compliance programs,” said Kimberly Nelson, Microsoft’s executive director state and local government solutions. “We look forward to working together to help our government customers launch successful regulatory programs.”

“We go after the contract and we are able to use the Microsoft sales team,” Dinenberg said. “They use their political connections. We use ours.” For more information read at video game reviews