Tag: IBM

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Supplier News: 8/29/2015

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An interesting week with suppliers in light of the market turbulence .  One would assume that there would be a great deal of financial performance information this week, but that was not the case (okay, there were a few interesting tidbits, see below).

IBM had a heavy cloud/IoT news cycle this week, the topic of containers come up in a few different media outlets.  EMC is starting to push back on OpenStack cloud concepts they adopted along with the other tech firms a few months ago.  Meanwhile, HP is just trying to make this split work.

IBM

  • IBM Invests $3 Billion and Hires 2,000 for IoT Unit
    Now there is number on how much they are willing to spend to start using data from mobile devices (via their deal with Apple), twitter communications with devices, and wearables to funnel that information into Watson and their analytics engines.

    Plans are to use resources to accelerate IoT deployments across a wide variety of verticals and closely collaborate between business groups such as Analytics; Systems and Technology (STG); the Watson Business Unit; and its Cloud and Services groups.

    http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/5666/ibm-invests-3-billion-and-hires-2-000-for-iot-unit

  • IBM takes on tough task of deploying containers across clouds

    Sets or clusters of containers can be scheduled and run on a given cloud with tools like the newly available Google Container Engine as well as Google-backed Kubernetes or the Amazon Container Service. But now developers have their eye on the next frontier: Deploying container clusters across different clouds—something IBM says it has accomplished. A team at IBM Research working with Moustafa AbdelBaky, a PhD candidate at Rutgers University’s Discovery Informatics Institute, used open-source technology called CometCloud as the basis of this work, which he calls C-Ports.

    http://fortune.com/2015/08/27/ibm-deploys-containers-across-clouds/
    Note: See what the IBM developers have to say about containers in the Reddit post below. 

  • IBM Watson, Using Speech Analysis Techniques, Correctly Identifies Patients At-Risk For Psychosis

    Having previously collaborated with Dr. Guillermo Cecchi in analyzing speech transcripts of patients high on ecstasy and meth, Dr. Gillinder Bedi wanted to do a similar study of psychotic patients. So Bedi, who is a research scientist at NY State Psychiatric Institute, asked Columbia Medical School researchers if they had any transcripts of people at high-risk for psychosis. In fact, they did have records for 34 at risk people (between the ages of 14 and 27). These 34 patients had been followed for two and a half years, during which time five had developed psychosis. Next, Cecchi applied machine learning and natural language processing analyses to the transcripts from the 34 patients to identify specific features that might predict psychosis.

    http://www.medicaldaily.com/ibm-watson-using-speech-analysis-techniques-correctly-identifies-patients-risk-349794

  • IBM launches Blue Box Cloud in data-centers

    Blue Box means IT departments can manage their OpenStack-based private clouds wherever the company (or offices, for a multi-location organisation) is based, to boost their public, private and hybrid infrastuctures. “Implementing Cloudsoft AMP on Blue Box Cloud across IBM Cloud datacentres will allow us to meet the increased demand from customers for hybrid cloud solutions built on OpenStack,” Duncan Johnston-Watt, chief executive of Cloudsoft, which is now taking advantage of Blue Box, said.

    http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/it-infrastructure/5312/ibm-launches-blue-box-cloud-in-datacentres

  • IBM developers get brutalized on a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA)
    I was reading this one in real time, and I felt bad for the guys.  It is interesting (when they were actually answering questions and not defending Lotus Notes – wow btw -there is substantial amount of hate for Lotus on the internet) to hear about their development priorities and some of the cultural aspects of working for the company.  
    https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ilzey/were_a_bunch_of_developers_from_ibm_ask_us/

EMC

  • EMC and Intel clash over OpenStack’s future direction

    Bias, who is also a director of the OpenStack Foundation, warned that the platform has so many different configuration options that it risked becoming fragmented and losing interoperability among different implementations of OpenStack. His recommendation is that OpenStack should have a base reference architecture against which specific implementations can be tested and verified, one of several steps he said that the platform needs to take.

    http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2423761/openstack-s-future-direction-causes-heated-community-debate

  • Pivotal appoints new CEO

    Pivotal, the cloud-computing spinout of EMC Corp. and VMware Inc., promoted Rob Mee as chief executive officer to replace Paul Maritz, who was appointed executive chairman of Pivotal’s board. Pivotal, backed by EMC, VMware and General Electric Co., was set up in 2012 to tap surging demand for Internet-based programs, after EMC acquired Pivotal Labs the same year. Mee co-founded the original entity, which specialized in developing tools to change how engineers build software. The technology has become a critical component of Pivotal’s business, which involves carrying out complex projects with customers, while training their engineers to write software in a more modern way.

    http://www.marketswired.com/emc-corp-nyseemc-appointed-new-ceo/225401/

Oracle

  • Oracle, still clueless about security

    Oracle’s chief security officer, Mary Ann Davidson, recently ticked off almost everyone in the security business. She proclaimed that you had to do security “expertise in-house because security is a core element of software development and you cannot outsource it.” She continued, “Whom do you think is more trustworthy? Who has a greater incentive to do the job right — someone who builds something, or someone who builds FUD around what others build?”

    http://www.cio.com/article/2975920/security/oracle-still-clueless-about-security.html#tk.rss_all

  • IBM And Oracle: A Comparison Of Economic Earnings
    Relative valuations
    As of writing, the market was valuing the two companies at:IBM: $138 billion
    Oracle: $154 billion.

    Now Oracle has a net cash position of about $10 billion, so backing this out, the market is valuing Oracle at $145 billion at about 11x economic earnings.

    On the other hand, IBM has net debt of about $6 billion (this excludes the financing segment; financing functions like a bank and debt in it is offset by loan/lease receivables; of course, a reader will point out that in the end debt is debt, however, in my opinion it is reasonable to exclude financing debt for the purposes of this discussion). So factoring this in, the market is valuing IBM at about $144 billion, or about 9.5x economic earnings.

    That is, there’s about a 10% difference in relative valuations.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3468516-ibm-and-oracle-a-comparison-of-economic-earnings

Hewlett Packard

  • PCs not dead despite difficulties ahead: HP chief

    http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/21/pcs-not-dead-despite-difficulties-ahead-hp-chief.html
  • Cisco Goes After HP in Contract Fight

    Cisco sued Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court after HP missed an Aug. 1 payment deadline. HP claims it doesn’t owe Cisco anything, according to the suit, and in fact, has demanded a refund.Cisco, represented by Winston & Strawn partners Krista Enns and J. Erik Connolly, is suing for breach of contract and declaratory relief. An attorney hasn’t entered an appearance for HP, but the company was represented by McKool Smith principal Robert Elkin in pre-litigation negotiations that began last year and have grown increasingly contentious, according to Cisco’s complaint.

    http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202735796401/Cisco-Goes-After-HP-in-Contract-Fight?slreturn=20150728135546

  • HP Already Operating as Two Companies, More Restructuring (Layoffs?) Coming

    Following a self-imposed three-day shutdown earlier this month, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) has divided its internal systems to effectively operate as two separate companies–one focused on PCs and printers and another on enterprise business–more than two months ahead of its November 1 formal split date. HP chief executive Meg Whitman, speaking on the vendor’s earnings call late last week, said the operations and IT systems were “successfully split,” as of August 1 and included the input of customers and partners.

    http://thevarguy.com/business-technology-solution-sales/082415/hp-already-operating-two-companies-more-restructuring-layoffs-com

  • HP to Cut More Jobs

    Hewlett-Packard (HP) plans to reduce a further 5% of its workforce in addition to the 55,000 jobs it already plans to eliminate.

    http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/5645/hp-to-cut-more-jobs

  • What happened to HP?
    [Interesting breakdown of their business decisions over the last 15 years]

    2010- Five years of revenue gains and a hefty increase in stock growth over this period helped lead the technology firm into a brighter era. In the annual report for HP’s 2009 fiscal year Hurd wrote, “Over the last five years, HP has become a much more agile company, able to adapt and benefit from changing market conditions. In fiscal 2009, we gained share in key markets and continued to invest for growth in research and development, acquisitions, and sales coverage.” But it did not last. Hurd was accused of sexual harassment. While he was cleared of wrongdoing for that accusation, Hurd was found to have submitted false expense reports to hide a relationship.

    http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/what-happened-to-hp–1302804

Other

  • The Onion Router is being cut up and making security pros cry

    IBM claims there were around 180,000 malicious traffic “events” in the USA between January 1 and May 10 this year, with 150,000 in the Netherlands, and more than 50,000 in each of Romania, France, Luxembourg and Uruguay. While the rise of ransom-ware is worrying, the biggest attacks emanating from TOR exit nodes are familiar old favorites: SQL injection, vulnerability scanning, and denial-of-service.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/26/big_blue_biz_better_block_tor/

  • Podcast: Industry Leaders on the Promise & Peril of NSCI

    Five senior executives from Cray, HP, IBM, Intel and SGI weigh in on the new National Strategic Computing Initiative’s (NSCI) prospects in this exclusive HPCwire podcast. Discussion ranged widely from the need for long-term funding for leading edge technology, to the software industry’s past slowness to get involved with advancing hardware technology development, to fostering new HPC talent – even on whether the creation of a U.S. Department of IT makes sense.

    http://www.hpcwire.com/2015/08/27/podcast-industry-leaders-on-the-promise-peril-of-nsci/

  • SAS named a leader in 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools

    The report’s authors note that, “Gartner estimates that the data integration tool market was worth approximately $2.4 billion in constant currency at the end of 2014, an increase of 6.9% from 2013. The growth rate is above the average for the enterprise software market as a whole, as data integration capability continues to be considered of critical importance for addressing the diversity of problems and emerging requirements. A projected five-year compound annual growth rate of approximately 7.7% will bring the total to more than $3.4 billion by 2019.

    http://ameinfo.com/technology/innovation/sas-named-a-leader-in-2015-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-data-integration-tools/

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Supplier News: 8/22/2015

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There is chatter about big purchases: the never-ending tale about EMC and HP, IBM is looking to buy CyberArk (maybe), Oracle bought Maxymiser, and CA completed their Xceedium deal.

As people are talking about purchases, SalesForce CEO Mark Benioff continues to talk smack about IBM and Oracle.  Meanwhile, IBM expands their  systems that can emulate organic thought process.

IBM

  • IBM launches Linux-only mainframe system LinuxONE

    IBM’s continued expanding support of Linux and Open Source projects makes sense given that these platforms and tools provide much of today’s connected infrastructure. And, the move away from in-house servers to cloud-based ones is a direct threat to IBM’s mainframe business. The company’s claim that it can provide a fast, reliable, and secure alternative at half the cost of cloud-based solutions is bound to get the attention of those with large-scale projects who want to control costs.

    http://www.extremetech.com/computing/212410-can-ibms-linuxone-mainframe-compete-with-cloud-computing

  • IBM Creates ‘Neuromorphic Chip’ That Is As Powerful As A Rodent’s Brain

    The network that IBM unveiled today uses around 48 million connections, which is the same computing power as a rat’s brain. The system is designed to be able to run “deep-learning” algorithms, similar to the facial recognition system being used by Facebook or the instant translate mode in Skype. However, IBM’s deep-learning algorithms are much cheaper to run, draw less electricity and are not the size of an entire data center. TrueNorth essentially contains 5.4 billion transistors and uses a tiny 70 mw of power. As a comparison, an Intel processor with 1.4 billion transistors draws between 35 and 140 watts.

    http://www.techtimes.com/articles/77610/20150818/ibm-creates-neuromorphic-chip-powerful-rodents-brain.htm

  • Buffett Loves IBM. That’s Bad for Innovation, and Investors

    IBM still develops many things, but not on the scale or with the profundity it did in decades past. It has been nurturing select investments for years, and pruning the losers. The company has shed multiple underperforming businesses in the past two decades, a tradition continued by current chief Virginia “Ginni” Rometty. First was the personal computer, a business it got out of in 2005, then last year’s sale of server computers based on Intel’s x86 chip, followed by this year’s divestiture of its chip-making operations.

    http://www.barrons.com/articles/buffett-loves-ibm-thats-bad-for-tech-innovation-and-ibm-1439617268

  • IBM and FireEye Possible Candidates to Acquire CyberArk, Centrify
    http://www.thestreet.com/story/13260085/1/ibm-and-fireeye-possible-candidates-to-acquire-cyberark-centrify.html

EMC

  • Why EMC’s ‘federation’ could unify (Yes, we are still talking about this)

    EMC’s decision to control VMware but at arm’s length was brilliant. It allowed the faster-growing acquired company to trade at a much higher relative valuation than its parent. Now both companies are slowing, and at least one prominent Wall Street analyst believes EMC will bring all the companies into the fold. “A stand-alone EMC, a stand-alone VMware, and a stand-alone Pivotal would, in our opinion find it difficult to compete,” writes Maynard Um of Wells Fargo Securities . Whereas VMware thrived by selling to EMC competitors like HP and Cisco, those companies increasingly are competing with both companies now, removing one of the benefits of separation.

    http://fortune.com/2015/08/19/emc-vmware-pivotal-federation/

  • EMC management trio jump ship to competitors

    Isabelle Guis, a product marketing VP and head of cloud strategy at EMC, joins Egnyte in September to become its chief strategy officer. Egnyte is a file sync ‘n sharer for enterprises, now saying it’s involved in adaptive enterprise file services. As such it competed with EMC’s Syncplicity business. This was sold to Skyview Capital in July. Syncplicity’s CEO in EMC days was Jeetu Patel. He moved to Box earlier this month to become an SVP and its chief strategy officer. These two moves, when added to that of EMC’s chief marketing officer Jonathan Martin, who went to a similar CMO spot at fierce EMC competitor Pure Storage in July, add up to… what exactly?

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/18/emc_execs_exit/

Oracle

  • Oracle snags Maxymiser to goose its marketing push

    Maxymiser specializes in what is called A/B testing, in which marketing professionals offer a couple of options to prospects to see which gets the best response. In theory, great A/B testing means that customers or would-be customers get pitches that actually interest them, rather than irritate them.

    http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/oracle-buys-maxymiser/

  • The epic 30-year bromance of billionaire CEOs Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff

    But their relationship took a quick turn in 2000 when Benioff found out that Oracle had secretly started its own CRM service that directly competed with Salesforce. Benioff wanted Ellison to leave Salesforce’s board immediately, but Ellison refused to quit. Ellison told Benioff, “It would be much cooler if you fired me.” (because that way Ellison would get to keep his Salesforce shares).

    http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-marc-benioff-relationship-2015-8

  • Adobe, IBM on top for enterprise digital marketing platforms; Oracle, Salesforce increasingly threaten

    A new report by global analyst firm Ovum has found Adobe to be the overall market leader for digital marketing platforms, followed closely by IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce. SAS and Teradata are the market challengers and new market entrant Marketo is a follower. These vendors share three-quarters of the annual US$5bn global market spend on digital marketing platforms.

    http://www.firstpost.com/business/adobe-ibm-top-enterprise-digital-marketing-platforms-oracle-salesforce-increasingly-threaten-2392362.html

Hewlett Packard

  • Why big data will be a big deal for the new HP

    HP’s big data offerings fall under the umbrella of its Haven product, which includes the company’s Hadoop distribution (which it works with partners like Hortonworks to deliver), along with Vertica (a SQL analytics platform), IDOL (for analyzing unstructured data) and HP’s Distributed R (for large-scale predictive analytics).

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/2973046/cloud-computing/why-big-data-will-be-a-big-deal-for-the-new-hp.html
    Comment: This is a fine thing to say, but HP seems to be late to the party (really late).  Do they have the ability to catch up and entice customers away from the other platforms?

  • HP CEO Whitman On The Odds Of A Blockbuster Acquisition And How HP Enterprise Stacks Up Against EMC, IBM

    You never say never. But I think probably not. We are really pleased with our portfolio. We think we are incredibly well positioned. We have got some nice growth in our businesses. I would rather look to the future and what we are going to do on a go-forward basis. But you never say never. Who knows what is going to happen. We have been very disciplined, and we have been smart about it, and I think we have been on the right side of right so far. EMC looks a little bit more like HP, but they don’t have our big technology services arm and they don’t have our Enterprise Services arm. Listen, they have some great technology, but we are doing very well in storage. Our all-flash storage array was up 400 percent year-over-year. We are really cranking on all-flash storage array.

    http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/data-center/300077859/crn-exclusive-hp-ceo-whitman-on-the-odds-of-a-blockbuster-acquisition-and-how-hp-enterprise-stacks-up-against-emc-ibm.htm

Other

  • How the cloud will devour open source

    Take MySQL, for example. The database has changed hands a few times, with Sun acquiring MySQL AB in 2008, then Oracle picking up the asset through its acquisition of Sun the following year. But MySQL, Sun, and Oracle have collectively made a heck of a lot less — orders of magnitude less — by selling MySQL-related services than Amazon Web Services has made by selling MySQL ­as­ a­ service (that is, Relational Database Service).

    http://www.infoworld.com/article/2970866/open-source-tools/how-the-cloud-will-devour-open-source.html

  • Don’t be IBM! Benioff goads the ‘dinosaurs’ as Salesforce beats Wall St expectations

    The way to understand the future is to look at the past, and you can look at IBM with the mainframe business. I think we all know IBM still sells a lot of mainframes. That doesn’t mean that IBM is innovating, that doesn’t mean that IBM is creating value for customers or helping them to transform customers’ businesses or align them with modern trends. It just means they’re selling them old technology and upgrading it. That’s what you see with companies like Oracle and SAP. These are old technology bases that are kind of meandering along like mainframes. And I think that is reflected in their license revenue growth, which has been poor, and then their movement to the cloud has been stunted because they don’t want to shift those customers into new models.

    http://diginomica.com/2015/08/21/dont-be-ibm-benioff-goads-the-dinosaurs-as-salesforce-beats-wall-street-expectations/

  • CA Technologies Completes Acquisition of Xceedium, Inc.

    With the transaction complete, CA offers customers a comprehensive, flexible solution for controlling and protecting IT administrator or other privileged user accounts from external attacks or insider mistakes and malicious misuse. The combined solution provides privileged identity controls at the server and the gateway to control access and action based on identity. The proxy-based, gateway approach from Xceedium also provides privileged identity control over cloud, on-premise, virtualised and hybrid IT environments, helping to protect the systems driving the application economy.

    http://www.cso.com.au/mediareleases/25440/ca-technologies-completes-acquisition-of-xceedium/

Photo: Pete Slater, Flickr

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Supplier News: 8/15/2015

 

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Everybody wants to get involved with the wide open roads of big data.  IBM continues their journey to find and assimilate all medical data to feed to Watson, but not without a few bumps in the road (people are not happy about the Merge deal).

HP is attempting to get their rubber on the road with their own big data tool known as “Vertica”.  They are also trying to get traction by announcing the new boards for each company post split.

Storage is a strong topic this week with the continued rumors of EMC shifting under VMware, Box poaching an EMC VP, and Google introducing two new storage and cloud platforms for enterprise.

IBM

Hewlett Packard

EMC

Other

  • Cloud Computing Market in Healthcare Research and Development Global Industry Analysis,Growth,Trends and Forecast 2020

    The market for cloud computing in healthcare research and development is highly fragmented as none of the players operating in this market holds more than 5% to 10% share of the overall market. Some of the major companies operating in this market are Oracle Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Intel Corporation, IBM Corporation, Merge Healthcare, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Carecloud Corporation and Carestream Health, Inc.

    http://www.medgadget.com/2015/08/cloud-computing-market-in-healthcare-research-and-development-global-industry-analysisgrowthtrends-and-forecast-2020.html

  • Google launches two cloud services to compete with Amazon, Microsoft and IBM

    The Mountain View-based company’s Cloud Dataflow and Cloud Pub/Sub will handle Big Data needs. Cloud Dataflow can perform complex computations on large quantities of data in batches or in streaming mode, while Cloud Pub/Sub is a tool that can send and receive data to and from applications in the form of “messages.”

    http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2015/08/13/google-launches-two-cloud-services-to-compete-with.html

  • Vodafone’s India CIO Anthony Thomas quits ahead of $1 billion IBM deal renewal

    Thomas joined Vodafone in April 2012 and played a key role in creating a new centralized IT structure within the company during his tenure. During his stint at Vodafone, the company also rolled out several new technology initiatives including the company’s microfinancing service m-pesa and also a new data warehouse.

    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/vodafones-india-cio-anthony-thomas-quits-ahead-of-1-billion-ibm-deal-renewal/articleshow/48449959.cms

  • Box’s Platform Push Targets Corporate Developers

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-08-13/box-s-platform-push-targets-corporate-developers

Photo: Luke Pamer, Unsplash

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Supplier Report: 8/8/2015

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IBM is making headlines with their one billion dollar purchase of healthcare imaging company Merge.  Merge will help Watson learn to look at medical images.   That picture ability could very well be developed at on a Mac as IBM agreed to purchase 200,000 Apple computers to replace more than half of their current workforce’s systems.

EMC might get bought by VMware (you heard that right) in some attempt to reorganize post-Tucci.  Informatica is going private again taking investment funds from SalesForce and Microsoft.

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EMC

  • VMware to acquire EMC?

    Inverting the company to make VMware the pinnacle would send a message that says storage hardware is not the future and virtualisation/cloud (whatever that means) is where the world is headed.  How would the partner relationship be affected?  I suspect potentially less than in the case of an EMC acquisition as VMware would be selling storage and co-operating with partners, so called co-optition.

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vmware-acquire-emc-chris-m-evans

  • EMC II, VMware and the future: Unpicking the house that Joe built

    There’s a case to be made that part of the reason for the Federation structure was that Tucci could not pick a single successor who would obtain the respect of the others and keep the EMC house that Joe had built in one piece. Only Joe could hold the whole caboodle together, and so the Federation came into being, with David, Pat, and Paul all getting CEO rank – and real, or near-as-dammit CEO responsibility – under Joe’s control.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/06/emc_federation_future_musings/

Other

  • A first: Microsoft inches past IBM in annual revenue
    Microsoft revenues now stand at $93.58 billion annually, compared to $92.79 billion for IBM.
    http://fortune.com/2015/08/05/microsoft-inches-past-ibm-in-revenue/
  • Gartner Seeing Steady Increase in Inquiries About Cancelling Maintenance Agreements with ERP Vendors

    “Enterprise software licensees are struggling with the low value and poor service received from increasingly expensive vendor annual maintenance fees and this report verifies that many licensees are actively considering independent support options,” said Seth Ravin, CEO, Rimini Street. “Rimini Street offers Oracle and SAP licensees a more robust service offering, a more responsive service model, exceptional client value and the ability to free up funds to drive innovations the business needs today. We are proud to have already helped nearly 1,100 clients, including more than 100 Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 100 organizations, achieve maximum value from their IT investments.”

    http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150805006713/en/Gartner-Steady-Increase-Inquiries-Cancelling-Maintenance-Agreements

  • Microsoft and Salesforce take a piece of Informatica

    Informatica has been taken back into private hands at a price of $5.3 billion (around £3.42 billion, or AU$7.18 billion) that was part funded by Microsoft and Salesforce. It isn’t a surprise that Microsoft and Salesforce are on the purchase bandwagon given that both already do a fair bit of work with Informatica on data integration technology and Informatica’s cloud tools are built on Amazon Web Services.

    http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/microsoft-and-salesforce-take-a-piece-of-informatica-1301320

  • We should drop the term ‘big data’, experts suggest

    Teradata Corp chief technology officer Stephen Brobst said that one of the biggest mistakes companies make is that they tend to put too much focus on the technology. “It’s not just about the technology; it’s more about value creation. Big data initiatives should not be technology-led; they should be led by value creation,” he said at a roundtable discussion in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

    http://www.themalaymailonline.com/tech-gadgets/article/we-should-drop-the-term-big-data-experts-suggest

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Podcast: IBM: Watson’s war on cancer

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As head of University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Cancer Center and one of the world’s premier oncologists, Dr. Norman Sharpless recognizes cancer to be the sort of big data problem that computers might help physicians solve. And he’s embracing a cognitive computer, IBM Watson, to help his team recommend personalized cancer care for his patients.

Sharpless’s UNC team is training Watson to analyze patient data, unstructured information (think scribbled doctor’s notes), genomic sequences and a continual stream of clinical trial results and medical literature in hopes that Watson can suggest effective treatment options for each new case. If Watson can do that, Sharpless says, it would help physicians mitigate the time and tremendous expense that comes with ineffective treatments. It could also completely change the nature of cancer research. But first thing’s first.

Sharpless is calling for a clinical trial pitting a team of doctors using traditional methods of research against a Watson-enabled team of doctors. And he’s confident that ultimately, the Watson-enabled team will win.

Photo: Nuno Job, Flickr