IBM Finds Homes for Watson

IBM has opened a New York HQ for its recently-launched Watson Group, housing more than 600 staff of the new self-service analytics division; and unveiled the first five 'Watson Client Experience Centers' for client support and training, in the cities of Dublin, London, Melbourne, Sao Paulo and Singapore.

Watson Analytics, launched last month and backed by more than 2,000 dedicated IBM staff worldwide, uses natural language based predictive and visual analytics to make it 'easier for business users to acquire and prepare data for analysis and visualization.'

The five support offices will be co-located with IBM Research and Design teams, and are intended 'to provide the support and skills needed to fully adopt the Watson cognitive platform'. Nevertheless the computing giant says the solutions are designed not for specialist data scientists but for those in 'data intensive disciplines including marketing, sales, operations, finance and human resources'.

The new global headquarters, at 51 Astor Place in NYC's Silicon Alley, will 'open its doors' to the City's developers and entrepreneurs, host industry workshops and seminars, and feature both an interactive client experience lab and a design lab for continuously enhancing the user experience. Workshops and seminars will build on IBM's academic partnerships with universities aimed at developing skills for careers in cognitive computing, big data and analytics.

Web site: www.ibm.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.