IBM bets that its Watson technology will ride the cognitive-computing wave to commercial success — while rivals gear up for the connected-computing era.
Two big names in technology held events in Manhattan this week to declare the start of a 3rd big wave in computing, but they were talking about different waves.
On Wednesday, Salesforce.com welcomed within the connected computing era, pointing to mobile, social, cloud, and billions of connected sensors and devices as things so they can transform our personal lives, industries, and the ways organizations interact with individuals. Giving its own spin to the net of factors, Salesforce talked up the “Internet of shoppers,” seeing connected aircraft engines, cars, appliances, tablets, phones, wrist watches, and other devices as ultimately connected to somebody’s customer.
On Thursday it was IBM’s turn, and it asserted that the arrival third wave often is the cognitive computing era. IBM’s cognitive technology is Watson, which won its fame beating two grand champions at Jeopardy back in 2011. The secret difference between cognitive computing and the programmable computing era that came before it truly is that it is not an “if-then” proposition, said IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty.
“You needed to program the pc to inform it what to do, and it can be everything that you simply know [about computing] to today,” Rometty explained.
[Want more on Watson? Read IBM Breeds New Business Unit To Feed Watson.]
In the cognitive era that Rometty says IBM introduced with Watson, computers can learn, analyze, and reason in human-like ways. Watson understands natural language. It generates and evaluates hypotheses. It adapts to and learns new information. It’s even learning to peer, to listen to, and to provide visual answers.
Cognitive computing would appear to be just what’s needed in an era during which there’s an excessive amount of information. Healthcare organizations are hoping Watson can transform medicine by combing through mountains of medical research and patient-specific records to aid doctors make accurate, personalized diagnoses and treatment decisions that benefit from the latest available information. IBM partner Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Big apple is training Watson as an Oncology Treatment Assistant. The Cleveland Clinic is using a system called WatsonPaths to support problem-based learning methods in its medical school. Executives from both institutions were to be had in Big apple to report on progress of their transformational deployments.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty is doubling down on IBM’s Watson bet with another $1 billion in investment.
Which Wave Is greater (Now)?
To casual observers, Salesforce.com’s version of the third-wave is more familiar, while cognitive computing might strike them more like a far off vision. All things mobile, social, and cloud were the controversy of the tech industry for years. Who isn’t conversant in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and dueling generations of Androids and iPhones? More recently, cloud computing, big data, and The net of factors have entered the favored lexicon. What big tech vendor hasn’t forged a methodology on these fronts?
IBM, too, is all around the connected-computing trends, but it is all but alone in pursuing cognitive computing. That’s one reason IBM announced late last year that it’s building an ecosystem for Watson, inviting in commercial partners and entrepreneurial developers, and funding seed work on real-world applications.
Since the Jeopardy victory in 2011, IBM have been working furiously to commercialize Watson. Because the Wall Street Journal reported this week, it’s been slow going, with $100 million in revenue so far against the company’s goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue by 2018.
IBM announced on Thursday that it’s doubling down on its bet on Watson. It’s miles making a dedicated IBM Watson Group business unit so that you can have its own office in New York’s East Village. The unit will ramp up from a couple of hundred employees currently to greater than 1,000. IBM also said it’s going to pump another $1 billion into the advance of the technology, with a focal point on “a chain of solutions that could deliver value in months, not years,” said Mike Rhodin, the IBM senior VP who’s moving over from IBM’s Software Group to go the recent business.
Looking beyond the transformative work in industries reminiscent of health care and monetary services, IBM is operating on developing repeatable enterprise solutions and a development ecosystem to dream up yet more real-world applications.
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