If, however, technology gives us back that shared memory, then we don't need intermediaries to enable transactions.
In the beginning, the blockchain was used to enable transactions in bitcoins and to ensure that a coin could not be spent and re-spent by its original owner.
Also square within the firm's sights are companies such as PayPal, which enable transactions between individuals as well as from users to merchants: "We're firmly focused on consumers," he says.
MySpace, the Web's largest social network, has gradually been imposing limits on the software tools that users can embed in their pages, like music and video players that also deliver advertising or enable transactions.
In an interview last fall with Wired, David Marcus, a former PayPal president who now heads Messenger, noted that Facebook wants to eventually enable transaction-free payments for businesses, then make money when businesses pay to be featured or promoted.
Neither site holds users' crypto or information; instead, they allow the checking of accounts and enable transactions to be sent to the blockchain, after which they are ferried on to the intended recipient.
While digitization has enabled transaction platforms in a growing range of industries, this transactional type of platform is not entirely new.
Ultimately, he said, SAP wants it to be "a community we create," in which it collects high fees by enabling transactions.
The Financial and Risk segment provides critical news, information and analytics, enabling transactions and brings together communities that allow trading, investing, financial and corporate professionals to connect.
He says after the 2008 banking crisis, banks have focussed again on their core business of enabling transactions rather than esoteric financial instruments and derivatives.
Ebay India recently noted in its 2012 Census that it enables transactions at the rate of about 1 per minute.
