IBM's Watson: Can it improve returns on R&D?

IBM on Thursday will outline a new advance in its Watson cognitive computing system that could ultimately help the returns on research and development. At an event in New York, IBM will show off new uses for Watson as it aims to commercialize cognitive computing and make its Watson Group a growth driver. IBM launched its Watson Group in January and invested $1 billion into the effort. To date, IBM has been deploying Watson in key verticals such as healthcare and life sciences and delivering its Watson Discovery Advisor as a cloud service. The catch is that Watson has to be prepped properly before deployed as a service. The system has to train itself as it ingests content that an IBM client wants.