Beyond 'Jeopardy': How IBM will make billions from Watson
Like millions of others, I made a point of staying home a few nights in February 2011 to watch a computer challenge the world's best "Jeopardy" players. IBM's Watson won, of course. End of story? Just a stunt? Not at all. After about five years of development and millions in R&D spending, IBM is taking its first steps to bring Watson out of the lab (and TV studio) and make money from it.
IBM, which made Watson a unit of its very profitable software group, has already landed major clients in health care and financial services (two were announced in March), with more in the offing.
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IBM, though, took a flyer on a product that combines advances in artificial intelligence, big data, and natural language processing to invent something new. When Big Blue started the project, "we'd be hard-pressed to know if it could be monetized," says Stephen Gold, who heads Watson Solutions. To me, that's what innovation is all about: taking a risk and exploring the leading edges of technology.
Gold did not care to say how much IBM spent developing Watson. The project, which came out of the company lab in Hawthorne, N.Y., took the services of 25 doctorate-level researchers and four labs, so it wasn't cheap. But I'm willing to bet it cost a lot less than the $1 billion shelled out for Instagram.
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http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/beyond-jeopardy-how-ibm-will-make-billions-watson-192814