No one questions that IBM’s Watson technology is impressive. The question is: How much of a business can it become?
IBM will show off progress on that front on Wednesday when it officially opens Watson’s business home in downtown Manhattan. IBM is announcing that about 100 companies and nonprofit institutions are developing and beginning to offer software applications using the Watson engine.
The Watson converts span a range of industries and countries, from a health management company in South Africa (Metropolitan Health) to a retail sales training app maker in Britain (Red Ant).
In the United States, the list of entries is dominated by small companies innovating in their industries like GenieMD, which is using Watson to make health recommendations to patients, andSparkCognition, which is applying Watson to computer security.
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“This is the first wave of partners,” said Stephen Gold, vice president of IBM’s Watson solutions business. “It’s a milestone toward seeing Watson take hold commercially in a meaningful way.”
To date, IBM has made a big bet on Watson, setting it up as a separate business at the start of this year, pledging $1 billion in investment and mustering a workforce of 2,000.
And ever since Watson beat human champions in “Jeopardy!” in 2011, the company has had its eye on commercializing the technology, first by demonstrating its value in tackling real-world problems, like recommending treatments to clinicians at theMemorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. (Mr. Gold did say Memorial Sloan Kettering planned to move beyond a research trial to a long-term deployment of the Watson technology.)
But the new announcements suggest that Watson is gaining at least a foothold in the marketplace. Watson is not going to make a significant contribution to IBM’s financial results anytime soon, given the company’s size (just under $100 billion in revenue last year).
But Watson is vital to IBM all the same. To prosper, IBM needs to create new businesses, not just hold off competition and gain market share in its existing corporate software, services and hardware businesses.
To succeed with Watson, IBM has to establish the technology as a platform that other companies build on. This is where the biological metaphor of ecosystems kick in, with operating systems being the prime examples over the years: IBM’s mainframe operating system, Microsoft’s Windows, Apple’s Macintosh and iOS, and Google’s Android.
IBM aspires to make Watson the equivalent of an operating system for software that learns, or cognitive computing, in IBM’s branding. That will depend on just how much the partners in the Watson ecosystem can actually do with its technology.
WayBlazer, a travel start-up that is announcing itself on Wednesday, is a bet on Watson. Its chairman and co-founder is a travel technology veteran: Terry Jones, a former executive at American Airlines’ Sabre reservations system, who became founder of Travelocity and founding chairman of Kayak.com.
There is no shortage of excellent travel websites, Mr. Jones said, but there is no technology like Watson, which combines natural-language search with the capability to generate tailored advice and insights. “Nobody is doing that in travel,” Mr. Jones said. “It couldn’t be done before.”
WayBlazer, Mr. Jones said, will be a service sold to businesses, like airlines and hotels, which can then offer it as a digital concierge service to their customers. WayBlazer’s first client is the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, and its Austin-based tips and recommendations should be ready by the end of the year, Mr. Jones said.
A user, Mr. Jones explained, would type in a query like “fall buddies trip to Austin.” The Watson engine, he said, would understand that query probably meant a group of men who wanted to visit the Texas capital in autumn. The software might then suggest taking in a Formula 1 auto race and a University of Texas football game.
If the race appeals, the Watson-powered WayBlazer software could then point out that a certain turn on the course is where the most action has occurred in past races, how to get to the best viewing spot, and the weather forecast for race day.
The Watson engine is now being fed text information, maps, pictures and social media posts about Austin. On mobile devices, WayBlazer, Mr. Jones said, will know where you are and what restaurants, shops and entertainment spots are nearby. If a person shares information, or WayBlazer gathers it from a partner hotel or airline, the software can also tailor advice to a person’s habits and interests.
The Watson engine is learning and improving as it is being fed more Austin-related data. Austin, Mr. Jones said, is not only where the start-up is located, but it has another advantage. “Austin is a midsized city, so we’re starting with a bounded problem,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to start with New York.”
Date: October 07, 2014