The press release can be found here, going for the medium, video to comment:
If you don't have a chance to watch here are the key takeaways:
- It is early times for cognitive business. Good to see IBM adding dedicated services professionals to its products (Watson and BlueMix to build cognitive apps).
- The concern is that very few enterprises have come out that they are using IBM (none mentioned in the press release). Granted, they may not want to go public with their showcases as they may be a strategic advantage and disrupt their industries.
- The dedicated website to 'out-think' is doing a good job showing the breadth and depth of the IBM cognitive, but also lack specific examples.
MyPOV
A good move by IBM, after many years of investment in cognitive products (Watson), time to get dedicated professionals to leverage the opportunity. It can be taken as a sign that Watson is now ready for doing business and tying careers in professional services to it.
On the concern side we know Watson is still a complex system to operate and see results (e.g. corpus training) and IBM will have to mention some specific 'lighthouse' customer show cases.
But overall a good move by IBM, it is early days for cognitive computing as a next gen application category. We will be watching.