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?
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
