
IBM’s Watson Analytics platform is now open to everyone - pranavpr
http://www.ibm.com/analytics/watson-analytics/
======
antimora
I signed up and extracted tutorial video URLs that can give you an idea how it
looks (video files names have titles):

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/mar...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/marketing1.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/ope...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/operations2.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sam...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sampleLoad.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/mar...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/marketing4.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sam...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sampleExplore.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/hr1...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/hr1.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sal...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sales2.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/fin...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/finance1.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/it1...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/it1.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sal...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sales1.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sam...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/samplePredict.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/mar...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/marketing3.mp4)

[http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sam...](http://101d1.http.tor01.cdn.softlayer.net/Welcome-
Assets/sampleStart.mp4)

~~~
jsprogrammer
So the first link is an exploration in learning how to extract more money from
"women with families" using targeted offers, just by dropping an Excel
spreadsheet onto a website.

Excellent work IBM.

~~~
stonogo
Were you under the impression that IBM was a non-profit? What exactly do you
think corporations purchase IT resources to accomplish?

~~~
jsprogrammer
No, why would I be under that impression?

I think it depends on the corporation and what they are purchasing.

IBM has tremendous resources and you'd expect very many smart and well
educated people on its payroll. It's just interesting which problems they are
selecting to solve when there are so many other problems to choose from that
they likely could solve.

Why not large scale logistics problems to reduce the cost of the overall food
supply chain instead of attempting to extract maximum profit from women with
families?

I suppose there is an argument that some might make that that is exactly what
you should do to achieve maximum reduction in cost. I don't hear IBM making
that argument though. I'm not going to make it either, I think there are
likely much larger reductions elsewhere.

------
Napoleon1963
I find the "Stories" section at the bottom to be particularly distasteful.

As far as I can tell, they've just taken stock photographs, labeled them with
plausible names, and made them seem like testimonials without actually being
real testimonials.

I don't expect marketing efforts to always be completely honest, but these
"stories" seem like a really condescending sham to me.

I wouldn't mind it if they discussed how this technology could benefit certain
business roles, but to attach fake (as far as I can tell; please let me know
if I'm wrong!) personae to these stories comes off as deceitful to me.

Marketers, please, stick with actual testimonials very verifiable people, or
don't even bother!

~~~
larrymcp
Haha, yeah when I saw the stock photos of the Tina Fey lookalike and the
hipster bearded IT manager, I said "okay, um this part of the site doesn't
appear to be targeted at me".

------
nl
Does this actually have anything to do with the technologies used in Watson-
the-Jeopardy-winning-system?

I've read much of the published papers on Watson and I don't really understand
how this relates?

Is it that the "Watson" brand encompasses all IBM's semi-intelligent systems
work?

~~~
cyorir
Watson refers to the technologies used in the Jeopardy system, yes.
Specifically, it refers to the Watson API, which consists of all the NLP and
AI algorithms used in the Jeopardy system repackaged (with additions) and
hidden under a simpler, query-based system. The Watson API is becoming the
basis for most of IBM's Bluemix services which are described by IBM as
"cognitive" (as you phrase it, "semi-intelligent systems" \- referring mainly
to NLP and related applications).

IBM is working on a number of applications to use the Watson API, as well as
inviting other developers to use the API. Watson Analytics is just one of
these applications, but it doesn't run on Watson alone. It is probably better
to think of these applications as fitting within the overall framework of
IBM's bluemix services, which includes Watson but also other technologies less
geared towards NLP.

[https://console.ng.bluemix.net/](https://console.ng.bluemix.net/)

------
gesman
I signed up and tried to upload data and Watson blew up on me with errors:

DB2 SQL Error: SQLCODE=-964, SQLSTATE=57011, SQLERRMC=null, DRIVER=4.16.53

Apparently it's very sensitive to data input formats and essentially it wants
you to do the data babysitting work first by properly preparing and
structuring the data before it'll do anything.

These are cool demos on "friendly" pre-baked spreadsheets but way early for
any practical production deployments, until IBM will start supporting raw
datasets.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I have been using IBM Watson, and it is also sensitive to clean input data.

I think that both IBM and Microsoft are doing a good job at "reinventing
themselves", BTW.

edit: by 'clean' I really meant data that is in a regular structure with good
example questions specified for each paragraph in input documents.

~~~
gesman
The world need more serious analytical tools.

I driving an effort for a major bank to combine all sources of different data
(traffic logs and external treat intelligence feeds - all of different
formats) to create a comprehensive fraud alerting and security investigation
system. And we got pretty impressive results utilizing Splunk as a data swiss
army knife.

IBM is certainly capable of offering a competitive solution to this industry
although they need to move faster.

WatsonAnalytics is a good start even at it's current "teaser preview" stage.

------
spydum
So, just another BI/decision support system, which uses this spiral
visualization? It is sorta neat it tries to find some patterns for you, but I
imagine once your data exceeds simple spreadsheets it becomes far less cool.

------
dustinupdyke
I signed up and my account has been pending for weeks. When I login, I get an
xml error, it isn't even handled nicely in html.

Not a great first impression by any means.

------
ha292
This Watson Analytics effort is flawed. It has a very limited market. It takes
massive investment to run. Very few people will ever try it. They will also
get very questionable benefits.

Bottom line, it is hard to see IBM getting anything close to a positive return
from it.

Judging by how IBM has gone on to destroy itself in the last few years, I
predict that this will be another nail on their coffin.

We won't be talking about Watson Analytics past Summer of 2015. Of course they
will have 1000 people still working on it.

~~~
yourad_io
With your opening, I can't help but `s/Watson Analytics/Personal Computing/g`
in my head.

------
jsprogrammer
Open to everyone who will sign up for a trial account with IBM?

Or did they post the code somewhere?

~~~
blaze33
"Watson Analytics is Now Open For Business", doesn't say open source. Also the
submitted title doesn't match the linked page title.

------
njx
looks similar to [https://vimeo.com/107544632](https://vimeo.com/107544632)

------
orasis
Is there any word on pricing?

------
audioburn
This is amazing. I feel like I'm dreaming. I'm wondering what the input
spreadsheets look like, though

