IBM: 15 Whiffs in a Row
January 20, 2016
Watson seems to be running out of answers. The system came up with a cook book, a plan to put a dent in cancer, and make sense of Big Data. Great public relations efforts, but the financial payoff seems to be lacking.
I read “IBM Shares Slide as Revenue Drops for 15th Stright Quarter.” How can this be when a company has the smartest, fastest, bestest artificial intelligence system in the world?
The answer is similar to Google’s analysis of its autonomous car’s track record. Wrecks are the fault of those pesky humans. IBM may be better off letting Watson and its Lucene based, home brew, and acquired technology make business decisions for IBM.
I learned in the write up:
Revenue shrank to $22.06 billion versus $24.11 billion.
And in “IBM Still on a Downward Roll with 15th Consecutive Quartgerly Revenuye Drop” this caught my attention:
“We continue to make significant progress in our transformation to higher value,” offered IBM chairwoman and chief executive Ginni Rometty.
Perhaps Ms. Rometty is not listening to IBM Watson? Or, on the other hand, perhaps she is? Either way, Watson is not delivering the payoff that IBM’s somewhat wonky Watson marketing purports.
Revenue, gentle reader, not marketing fluff seems to be needed. Cognitive computing and humans seem to be ineffective when it comes to generating sustainable, substantive revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2016
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