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IBM held its 20th annual IBM Connect conference (previously known as Lotusphere) as part of its IBM Social Business efforts at the end of January. The conference focuses on business and social collaboration technology, which our business technology innovation research found to be the second-ranked priority for business innovation. At the conference IBM made a series of significant announcements, including a new version of its social collaboration suite, IBM Connections, and the ability to use the software on a cloud computing platform.
In the mid ’90s Lotus Notes and Domino led the market with the first true business collaboration and communications software. Today, after decades of fierce competition with Microsoft and its Office and SharePoint offerings, IBM is innovating (in a much more serious way than I have seen from Microsoft) to gain growth in the new market for business and social collaboration software. It is a good time for IBM to aggressively expand into the market, as our research finds only 25 percent of organizations are satisfied with their social collaborative capabilities. These have been dominated by shared folders and documents (86%), videoconferencing and instant messaging (66%), yet those applications are only a small piece of what social collaboration is about.
IBM has been adding business collaboration features over recent years with new capabilities that include activity streams, broadcasting, instant messaging, videoconferencing and wikis. All are part of IBM Connections 4.5, along with content and document management. With IBM Docs people can collaborate on a range of documents, including spreadsheets, presentations and word processing. IBM has advanced the user experience and integrated its collaborative and social software into a unified user experience. IBM is also making the software available on Apple, Android and BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. Our research finds Apple to be the first-ranked priority for smartphones (50%) and tablets (66%), followed by Android on smartphones (27%) and tablets (19%). Though BlackBerry (which just announced the change in its corporate name from Research in Motion) is a distance third for smartphones, it still has a loyal following that also uses IBM software. Our research finds Microsoft at the bottom of business and IT buyers’ priority lists. IBM is also expanding its social collaboration support for mobile technology to operate in an offline mode which is essential and has also addressed the need to secure sensitive communications and content.
IBM also maintains a strong installed base with Notes and Domino. IBM Notes and Domino Social Edition 9 is expected to be available in March and brings an innovative approach to blend social collaboration within electronic mail that many will really like IBM innovative approach. Businesses that do not use Notes, which make up the majority of the industry, can examine IBM Connections.
IBM is also moving fast to ensure that its offering is available in cloud computing. IBM SmartCloud for Social Business will make it easier for organizations to get started and use the software without the need for servers, storage and other internal IT resources. This is an important step to bring its offering to a larger audience that may not have the IT resources or budget to support new business collaboration efforts. The software helps streamline the cultural transition to using social collaborative software. IBM has introduced adoption services with a range of models, processes and education. This investment is critical to get organizations to step into the new world of social collaboration and increase the confidence level of organizations in this approach; today only 17 percent are very confident and just 38 percent are confident.
IBM has completed its acquisition of Kenexa, and at IBM Connect seemed to indicate it has settled on some specific areas of focus that blend learning and recruiting with 
social collaboration. It has taken steps since my analysis at the time of the acquisition to address many of my concerns. In addition, IBM introduced its new Employee Experience Suite, which is designed to provide an interface to business priorities and work like an employee portal. IBM also touted its new social learning offering, which when delivered will leverage its existing software and what the company purchased with Kenexa. I would like to have seen more on how to leverage Kenexa OutStart mobile learning. The potential in social learning is significant, and IBM’s product offerings put the company on a short list of providers who offer integrated social learning today. More broadly, IBM’s efforts to bring social collaboration to human capital management come at a time when our research into HCM shows that knowledge sharing, collaborating and learning are key priorities in organizations today. IBM will need to invest further to bring into IBM Connections more from Kenexa of what is needed in talent management in recruiting, performance and compensation. IBM has a great opportunity to expand its position with Kenexa recruiting customers that use both its software and its services and get them to use more IBM social collaboration and workforce analytics software.
IBM spoke at the conference about its Smarter Workforce Analytics Suite, designed to address workforce analytics and predictive hiring analytics, but I did not see this software leveraging the company’s business intelligence or workforce analytics solutions. The tandem of this software foundation, the IBM Research and global 
business services organizations, and the analytic services of the Kenexa organization has the potential to advance the necessary process of moving off of spreadsheets to a dedicated business intelligence tool to meet the needs for workforce analytics and planning. We have found in our research a significant move by businesses to improve workforce analytics in 2013, with 61 percent of organizations indicating they have plans in this area. Also most HR organizations are still working on advancing beyond the use of spreadsheets and reports indicating a lower level of maturity than what IBM might expect. This could be an opportunity for IBM if they fully utilize the core technology of its business analytics software and that I wrote about last year.
I was impressed with IBM’s advancements in social collaboration at Connect 2013 and its commitment to usability, which our research found to be the highest priority (64%) in choosing technology, followed by reliability, since technology in use across an organization must be able to scale and perform. Organizations that have not considered IBM for social collaboration should examine the new version of Connections, since it offers a powerful set of unified capabilities that encompasses mobile technology. The top benefit to such software according to 72 percent of organizations in our research is better communications and knowledge sharing, and Connections has the power to deliver that. However, IBM should also embed its social collaboration features in other business applications, as that is still a preferred method of accessing collaboration according to 43 percent of organizations. One area that I expected to see more highlighted was its integration with IBM business analytics software which is one of the top use cases for using social collaboration in the enterprise and that IBM has integrated already.
IBM is taking a significant step forward to bring Smarter Workforce into a highly competitive market for human capital management. This is confirmed in my colleagues (Stephan Millard) research agenda for human capital management, that the pace of innovation in 2013 will be significant. IBM new offerings and approach are ones to watch but make sure you are able to get something for use today in your business and not have to wait for the future. IBM is a vendor to watch for its ability to help organizations of all sizes with social collaboration and human capital management.
Regards,
Mark Smith
CEO & Chief Research Officer
IBM Watson blends existing and innovative technology into a new approach called cognitive computing. At the simplest operational level it is technology for asking natural language-based questions, getting answers and support appropriate action to be taken or provide information to make more informed decisions. The 
technology relies on massive processing power to yield probabilistic responses to user questions using sophisticated analytical algorithms. A cognitive system like Watson accesses structured and unstructured information within an associated knowledge base to return responses that are not simply data but contextualized information that can inform users’ actions and guide their decisions. This is a gigantic leap beyond human decision-making using experience based on random sources from the industry and internal sets of reports and data.
This innovative new approach to computing is designed to aid humans by working with natural language – English in the case of today’s Watson. This approach earned Watson the 2012 Technology Innovation Award in the category of Overall Operational Innovation.
For those of you who are not used to the word cognitive, the foundation of cognition is the sum of all the thinking processes that contribute to gaining knowledge for problem-solving. In computational systems these processes are modeled using hardware and software; machine-based cognition thus is a step toward imbuing an artificial system with attributes we typically consider human: the abilities to think and learn. Watson builds on a foundation of evidence from preexisting decisions and knowledge sources that it can load for reference in future inquiries. The evidence-based reasoning that Watson employs to answer question is part of the big deal in its approach.
Watson supports three types of engagement – ask, discover and decide – that take natural language questions, find facts to support a decision process, then gets probabilistic guidance on decisions. This goes beyond search and retrieval technology; machine learning and processing of questions using very large volumes of data, commonly referred to as big data, is the foundation on which Watson as a cognitive system operates. Most important is the continuous learning method and what I would call adaptive intelligence. While machine learning and pattern-based analytics are part of the cognitive system, the ability to process big data efficiently to provide a probabilistic set of recommendations is just the kind of innovation many industries need.
IBM has focused much of its work on Watson on healthcare, with potential life-saving implications in an environment where doctors must make crucial decisions in the midst of pressure from the complexity, costs, overload of information and policies. Watson can ingest large volumes of information from reports and documents that can accelerate its learning processes to support a range of healthcare needs. Watson can be used in three areas in healthcare: teaching, practice and payment. IBM works with Wellpoint to support doctors in making decisions, and also eliminating waste or misapplied treatments that insurance providers have to cover. Watson is being used today to determine where improvements can be made in cancer treatment. IBM has targeted specific Watson solutions to help in the research, diagnosis and treatment, care and utilization aspects of battling cancer.
IBM has a huge opportunity to bring innovation to business 
through the use of Watson, and has been experimenting with a number of deployments to test its potential. Innovative technology is a priority today for business improvement initiatives (60%) and to improve the quality of business processes (57%) – the top two factors driving technology selection according to our business technology innovation benchmark research. IBM has been working with organizations in healthcare and financial services, but believes Watson could be useful in just about every industry that must have what I call better situation intelligence that must accommodate current conditions and preexisting information to determine the best answer. While IBM will not be the only supplier of cognitive systems, it is pretty much the sole supplier of one that can be purchased and adapted to a business today. IBM is still working to improve the methods by which its cognitive system operates, as well as the interface with which it delivers answers. As IBM moves forward, it will be challenged to create attractive packages and prices for Watson and its computing technology (i.e. hardware, memory, storage and processing potential), as this new approach is not something that organizations have experienced before. Despite this challenge, IBM Watson represents a step forward that the IT and technology industry does not see very often. After my assessment of IBM Watson at the IBM Analyst Insights (Twitter: @AnalystInsights) where I got to have an in depth discussion with the leaders of IBM Watson provided more insight to what is possible with the technology and path for its investments into its cognitive system. I would recommend that organizations take a look at the future of business technology computing that will be able to make a significant impact on the operations of any organization.
Regards,
Mark Smith
CEO & Chief Research Officer
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