

Ask HN: is IBM the new Google? - draz

Given Watson's capabilities in parsing vast amounts of data and "understanding" subtle meanings, could (/should) IBM leverage this technology to search and parse the web, and answer free text queries?
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mindcrime
I doubt IBM is interested in running a general purpose web-scale search
engine. They seem pretty focused on selling stuff to businesses for internal
use. If there was any sort of interesting connection between them and Google
on something like this, I'd think it might involve Google licensing IBM's
technology. But, for all we know, Google already have - or are developing -
have the same ability. I mean, they don't employ Peter Norvig and people of
his caliber for no reason.

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kls
Right IBM is positioning the DeepQA technology at business insight and data
analysis. They have said medical would be the first and most applicable
fields. If I where Google I would not be that concerned as of yet. The heart
of DeepQA is UIAM <http://uima.apache.org/> which is freely available so if
Google really wanted to they could implement a good deal of the same
technology granted UIAM is not the only piece of the puzzle but it is a large
piece.

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draz
I agree that IBM has a "high purpose." Though, I'm not convinced. Given that
Google also tries to branch out to other domains, why shouldn't IBM do the
same? Google offers enterprise search boxes, it is (try to get) involved in
the healthcare domain (through collaboration with medical institutions as well
as Google Health), etc. Chess, I think, was too limited and market share is
too small (hence, no threat to EA). But something like this is applicable to
many different domains, including a web search.

~~~
mindcrime
_Though, I'm not convinced. Given that Google also tries to branch out to
other domains, why shouldn't IBM do the same?_

Sure, I agree in principle. And I suppose if IBM management thought that was
the right avenue for them to grow, they would do it. I just haven't seen much
to make me think IBM have any interest in the consumer space at the moment.
That could certainly change, but I personally wouldn't bet on it happening
anytime soon. But, weirder things have happened...

~~~
kls
Yeah, I would agree with the no movement towards the consumer space, if
anything they have retreated from it with the sale of the PC division to
Lenovo.

As well the time to challenge Google was 5-7 years ago, when they where at
their peek of dominance.

The way people consume information on the net is changing and even Google has
to figure out where the chips are going to land. I am not saying Google is
going to be irrelevant tomorrow or even that they will be relegated to a niche
player just that their search crown gleamed a little brighter a few years ago.

If IBM's history is any indicator, they would rather license the technology to
Google than to dilute their business model with consumer facing technology.

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michael_dorfman
Not any more than Deep Blue made them the new ElectronicArts.

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noodle
unlikely. even if they could port it into a web interface to compete with
google, i'd bet that IBM would rather wrangle watson into higher-end
commercial usage, like medicine or law. that is what IBM does best.

