In the three years since IBM’s Watson computer destroyed the  two all-time Jeopardy! champions in an exhibition game, many people have wondered how IBM will bring the Watson question answering technology to market. Now those questions are being answered.

IBM yesterday released a new data analytics tool called Watson Analytics aimed at helping everyone from secretaries up to CEOs harness the power of data analytics.

One of the most startling aspects of Watson Analytics is that IBM is offering it as a “freemium” cloud service. Users can upload their data to the Watson cloud for free and the computer spits out predictive insights about their business.  for business types to use. The idea is that Watson Analytics gives companies that don’t have a data scientist a chance to explore their Big Data and put it to use.

Bob Picciano, senior VP of IBM’s Information and Analytics group, explained Watson Analytics is designed to let business people ranging from sales reps to CEOs see patterns in their data and improve their decision-making. “We have eliminated the barrier between the answers they seek, the analytics they want and the data in the form they need,” he added.

As an example, a salesperson might be able to explore their sales data according to customer age or region to find patterns. Alternatively, a human resources professional could might use Watson to determine how to improve  employee retention by inputting such data as their reasons for leaving, duration of employment, and so on.

IBM claims Watson Analytics is idiot-proof. Once your data is loaded up, all you have to do is ‘ask’ Watson Analytics in plain language with questions such as “what is driving my sales?” This removes the need for the sometimes arcane query  languages used by traditional data analysis tools. Watson Analytics also helps users to figure out what data they need to look at, a process that IBM says can consume up to 50 percent of the time it takes to complete a typical data analysis project.

“Most analytic offerings assume users have data ready for analysis, a clear idea of the type of analysis needed, and the skills and time to build a model for analysis,” notes IBM. “However, most business users have none of these things.”

Although Watson Analytics is initially free, those who use it for long enough (and presumably like the results) will eventually hit a data cap. After that, they’ll have to pay to continue using it and gain access to more tools and storage space.

The company says Watson Analytics will be available with “certain capabilities” for beta testers in the next 30 days, with general availability expected later in the year.

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