IBM is trying to bring Watson to the channel and his having mixed results.

IBM Searching For Right Answer For Watson And Partners

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How will partners make money with Watson?
How will partners make money with Watson?

This week IBM said its Jeopardy-winning Watson supercomputer was headed to Japan in a partnership with SoftBank in a move that both hope will grow a Japanese language-based ecosystem of partners and developers around the Watson technology.

IBM made the SoftBank announcement at its annual Partner World Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, where many partners in attendance said they are enamored by Watson, but still are trying to figure out how the cognitive computer technology can help them make money here at home.

“The challenge with Watson is it takes a very high level of expertise to even begin that conversation with customers. And Watson and cognitive are things we have little domain expertise in,” said Steven Drew, President of CAS Severn, an IBM partner based in Laurel, MD that counts healthcare as a strategic market.

Drew compares Watson and the cognitive solutions to cloud offerings when they were first introduced to the market. “Customers just didn’t know what to do with the cloud at first,” he said.

It’s only been a year since IBM launched its IBM Watson Group that is dedicated to commercializing the cognitive computer technology. In the past year IBM opened up a swank New York City Watson headquarters and pledged $1 billion to bringing cloud-delivered cognitive applications and services to market. In that short time, IBM has already made impressive progress attracting developers and winning what it calls ecosystem partners and strategic partners. These two partner groups don’t resell Watson, rather they sell their own solutions powered-by Watson.

The next step for Watson is to rollout out something closer to a turnkey solution for specific IT verticals. IBM announced late last year Watson Ecology, aimed at the healthcare industry. IBM is also working on other niche products such as Watson for Wealth Management and Chef Watson for the food industry.

For those IBM partners that already use a form of Watson as part of a business solution, IBM’s productizing of Watson leaves them eager to go to market.

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