IBM
is investing $3 billion to build an ‘Internet of Things’ division aimed
at harnessing the massive trove of data collected by smartphones,
tablets, connected vehicles and appliances and using it to help
companies better manage their businesses.
IBM
estimates that 90% of all data generated by mobile and ‘smart’ devices
is never analyzed. The Armonk, New York, company hopes to change this by
teaming up with companies like Twitter and the Weather Co, the owner of
the Weather Channel, and developing cloud-based data services and tools
for app developers.
IBM
is training more than 2,000 consultants, researchers and developers to
help businesses come up with new ways to use the vast amounts of data
that are now available, said Glenn Finch, Big Data and Analytics Lead at
IBM Global Business Services.
This could mean combining Twitter data with economic and weather data to predict what someone might be interested in buying.
The
new business unit is part of IBM’s shift away from hardware toward
spending billions to focus on analytics, cloud computing, mobile
services and security.
IBM
plans to launch an online service that helps insurance companies
extract insight from connected vehicles, to create new pricing and
services customized to individual drivers.
Meanwhile,
the Weather Co plans to shift and integrate its massive weather data
operation into the IBM Cloud, so that insurance providers could send
policy holders text messages alerting them to impending hailstorms and
vehicles could be moved before being damaged, for instance.
It could also help determine exactly how many people were hit by a natural disaster so insurers could respond to claims faster.
“Most
people, most businesses, most governments wait for weather to happen to
them and react to it rather than anticipate what it will do to them,”
said Mark Gildersleeve, president of the Weather Co’s WSI division.
The
IBM partnership “aims to help governments and businesses essentially
serve their end users better by making decisions earlier,” he said.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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