IBM starts testing business intelligence service Watson Analytics

IBM has started testing a service aimed at business managers who use spreadsheets to do most of their analysis or use traditional business intelligence tools, according to the IDG News Service.

Watson Analytics, an interactive Q&A service functions on lines of natural language systems such as Apple's Siri, Google's GoogleNow and Microsoft's Cortana.

The beta version comes as part of a beta version, a $1 billion initiative to commercialise its Watson analysis technology.

According to Eric Sall, IBM vice president of marketing for business analytics, who spoke to IDG, the service was about putting powerful analytics in the hands of every business user. He added that traditional business intelligence tools remained too difficult to use for business managers.

It was hard to get the data he said, adding it was hard to analyse the data if one was not a specialist, and it was hard to use the tools.

Watson was developed by IBM Research and named after pioneering former IBM CEO Thomson J Watson to compete with human contestants on the  ''Jeopardy'' game show. The company had earlier launched Watson services to cater to the needs of scientific researchers and customer support representatives.

Armonk-based IBM would bring a freemium version of its data analytics tool to the market in November, aimed at small businesses and others who wanted to join the emerging world of big data analytics, Albany Business Review reported.

The development comes as the latest step in the computing giant's efforts to monetise its $1 billion investment in the Watson Group, headquartered in Manhattan.

IBM had so far pitched Watson at the high end of the market, such as cancer research, military assistance, advanced cooking and engineering. However while those elite, costly partnerships were IBM's first priority, the company was now  also looking the more mundane circles of US business.

According to the company, its new product would automate data preparation, predictive analysis and visualisation to professionals in marketing, sales, human resources, and finances. It was designed to work with plain language question prompts, such as which benefits drove employee retention the most? and which deals were most likely to close?