Making its biggest announcement as leader in analytics, IBM(NYSE:IBM) has announced Watson Analytics, a breakthrough natural language-based cognitive service that can provide instant access to powerful predictive and visual analytic tools for businesses.
According to analysts, only a small fraction of business people use powerful analytics tools as part of their decision-making. Watson Analytics is designed to make advanced and predictive analytics easy to acquire and use for anyone.
The first release of Watson Analytics will include a freemium version of its cloud-based service designed to run on desktop and mobile devices. Watson Analytics offers a full range of self-service analytics, including access to easy-to-use data refinement and data warehousing services that make it easier for business users to acquire and prepare data - beyond simple spreadsheets - for analysis and visualization that can be acted upon and interacted with.
"Watson Analytics is designed to help all business people - from sales reps on the road to company CEOs - see patterns, pursue ideas and improve all types of decisions," said Bob Picciano, Senior Vice-President, Information and Analytics Group, IBM.
Designed with simplicity and ease-of-use in mind, business users can gain instant access to persona-based business scenarios specific to their role. Instead of fumbling over data, searching for answers or testing hypotheses, the user can focus on understanding the business and effectively communicating results to stakeholders.
Certain Watson Analytics capabilities will be available for beta test users within 30 days, and offered in a variety of freemium and premium packages starting later this year.
