IBM’s Watson can crush Jeopardy challengers and might one day help cure cancer, but how can the average business benefit from the supercomputer’s power?
Enter Watson Analytics, which IBM calls “powerful analytics for everyone.”
The service, IBM said, provides “instant access to powerful predictive and visual analytic tools for businesses.
Say you’re looking to find out which benefits plan is mostly likely to drive employee retention. Instead of mining the data yourself, or dumping the work onto a systems engineer, Watson Analytics can prepare and present the information in an easy-to-interpret interactive format.
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The “Data for Dummies” concept was announced earlier this year as part of IBM’s $1 billion investment plan for its newly formed Watson Group, which brings cloud-based apps and services to the public. IBM initially ran its Analytics service under the codename Neo, and a beta version of the system launched nine months ago via the IBM cloud.
“Watson Analytics is designed to help all business people – from sales reps on the road to company CEOs – see patterns, pursue ideas and improve all types of decisions,” Bob Picciano, Senior Vice President of IBM’s Information and Analytics Group, said in a statement. “We have eliminated the barrier between the answers they seek, the analytics they want and the data in the form they need.”
A portion of Watson Analytics will arrive for beta testers within 30 days, while other freemium and premium packages are expected later this year, IBM said. The company will also make Watson Analytics services available through IBM Bluemix so developers can add the tech to their apps.
Date: September 16, 2014