IBM wants to build a large and profitable business from what has mostly been a triumph of computing bragging rights, so it is giving Watson $1 billion and a nice office. Watson is IBM’s name for a combination of powerful data-processing capabilities and software that analyzes information from almanac entries, medical records, sales information and the like. It made a splash in February 2011 when it became the computer that beat humans on the television trivia show “Jeopardy!” So far, however, Watson has not delivered a lot of revenue for IBM. The company says a new division, the Watson Business Group, will have 2,500 employees, including programmers, researchers and experts in various industries. It will be located near the East Village in New York City, and about $100 million of the group’s funding will be for venture investments related to Watson’s so-called data analysis and recommendation technology.
