IBM has strengthened its cloud computing offerings with a new
high-end service that takes advantage of its famed Jeopardy!-winning
Watson technology.
The service, dubbed IBM Watson Developers Cloud, could help agencies
by applying Watson’s cognitive computing intelligence to the federal
government’s big data problems, from fraud analysis to intelligence
surveillance and sensor-gathered data.
IBM is making its Watson technology available as a development
platform in the cloud in the hopes of prompting third-party developers
to create new applications that take advantage of its ability to learn
from its interactions with data and reprogram itself for better results.
IBM is providing a developer toolkit, educational materials and access
to Watson’s application programming interface.
Developers that build Watson-powered apps in the cloud can use their
organization’s data or they can access the IBM Watson Content Store,
which features third-party data. Additionally, IBM has committed 500
subject matter experts to the IBM Watson Developers Cloud effort.
IBM’s high-profile Watson technology is leading the way towards a new
era of cognitive computing systems. In September, Frost & Sullivan
recognized IBM Watson Solutions with the 2013 North America New Product Innovation
award, which is given to a company with an innovative product that
leverages leading-edge technologies and produces value-added features
and benefits for customers.
"The IBM Watson Engagement Advisor technology can listen to and
respond to a series of follow-up questions and remember the previous
questions that were posed," said Frost & Sullivan analyst Stephen
Loynd. "In other words, IBM Watson combines technologies that allow the
Engagement Advisor to understand natural language and human
communication, generate and evaluate evidence-based hypothesis, as well
as adapt and learn from user selections."
The announcement of IBM Watson Developers Cloud comes just weeks
after IBM forfeited its legal battle against Amazon Web Services to win a
10-year, $600 million cloud computing services contract with the CIA.
Analysts said it doesn’t make sense for IBM to compete head-to-head
against Amazon on federal deals aimed at the lowest possible price.
"From a pure analytics standpoint, Watson is a great platform," said
Shawn McCarthy, research director for IDC Government Insights. "So
easing the way that people can have access to what it does is a good
thing, and it allows IBM to focus on something it does really well as
opposed to playing the commodity game, which is tough."
The initial target market for IBM Watson Developers Cloud is the
private sector, with IBM touting third-party applications in such areas
as retail and health care. But analysts say the offering will impact big
data problems in the public sector, too. McCarthy sees potential for
Watson-powered apps in such areas as fraud analysis, which the White
House is ramping up due to worries about scammers taking advantage of
consumers signing up for its new health care plans.
"Fraud issues could be huge. That could be anything from tax issues
at the state and local level, to unemployment or other benefits —
anything that people can dream up for fraud," McCarthy says. "A good
analytics solution can help unravel where A and B don’t exactly line
up."
Another possible application of the IBM Watson Developers Cloud is
entity analytics, which is used by the Department of Homeland Security
to find patterns in data by looking for commonalities about entities,
whether they are people, phone numbers or license plates.
"A good example of entity analytics is when a credit card is used
here and goes to this address, and the address is suspicious because a
phone call made from that address was used to contact a criminal or
terrorist network," McCarthy explains. "Entity analytics is about
comparing many sources of data and looking for commonalities and
patterns. What Watson has is the ability to learn from the data flowing
through it, so it could learn that this address is associated with this
group of friends."
By: Carolyn Duffy Marsan
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