Up and Down for IBM
March 26, 2014
There is good news and there is bad news for IBM. First up, a real journalist asks difficult questions about their high-profile project in “What’s Up with Watson?” at Gigaom. Writer Barb Darrow begins by noting that IBM likes to hold up its Jeopardy winner as an example of the company’s prowess. However, she explains, the much-lauded project seems to be floundering. There is the fact that its former leader left for newer pastures just four months after touting Watson‘s business potential. Darrow also reports:
“One problem I’ve been hearing about for a while is that while Watson is impressive technology, it is not really a product that’s easy to sell. IBM’s decision to open up APIs, to offer Watson’s smarts as a service, is one response to that. You make Watson available in more affordable portions, maybe it’ll gain traction….
“Sources close to IBM have said privately for some time that Watson has not hit internal targets for new business — no doubt one impetus for the new business unit. One said IBM wanted 100 new ‘logos’— big-name corporate wins in IBM parlance for Watson last year and was only able to close a handful.”
That’s the bad news. Meanwhile, though, the company has launched a contest that both spreads their name and inspires students worldwide (that’s the good news.) We learn that IBM is expanding their Master the Mainframe Contest, begun in 2006, in eWeek‘s “IBM Launches Master the Mainframe World Championship.” Reporter Darryl K. Taft tells us:
“The world championship competition is designed to assemble the best university students from around the globe, who have demonstrated superior technical skills through participation in their regional IBM Master the Mainframe contests….
“Of the 20,000 students who have engaged in country-level Master the Mainframe Contests over the last three years, the top 44 students from 22 countries have been invited to participate in the inaugural IBM Master the Mainframe World Championship.”
The contest is viewed as a way to get millennials excited about enterprise computing. For my part, I hope these young people will breathe some fresh air into the enterprise mainframe. See the article for details, or head over to the official Championship website.
Cynthia Murrell, March 26, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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