IBM is a step ahead of the competition in getting value from Big Data, and it showed that off at Insight 2015 last month. While the rest of the industry is still focused on developing Big Data infrastructure like Hadoop and Spark, IBM is focused on solving business problems with what it calls “Systems of Insight”, writes Wikibon Big Data Analyst George Gilbert.

This new family of business analytics, which Wikibon calls “Systems of Intelligence”, deliver predictive analytics to meet specific needs of vertical industries based on advanced analytic capabilities, including Watson, working with multiple data sources. In IBM’s case those sources now include Twitter and The Weather Company.

By themselves, these new data sources are in some cases already providing business value, Gilbert writes in “IBM’s Mission: Remake Customers Like Weather Co.” In recent years, in response to changes in its markets including the rise of mobile computing, The Weather Company has redesigned its services, greatly improving accuracy, geographic specificity and information refresh rate (see video of The Weather Company Chairman and CEO David Kenny on theCUBE at IBM Insight 2015, below). This has allowed it to open new vertical markets, selling services to insurance companies, airlines, and ground transport companies, for example. Its accuracy is so precise that it can deliver predictions of upcoming runway closures to pilots in the air.

With the IBM acquisition, IBM plans to use Watson to analyze pictures of the sky to forecast the formation of extreme weather conditions such as thunderstorms and tornadoes, which have been maddeningly difficult to predict accurately. This will provide the basis for better evacuation planning in extreme conditions as well as transportation rerouting and other predictive analytics that are valuable to specific industry verticals.

IBM is combining data from these and other specialized data sources to create powerful tools based on cognitive computing and other advanced technologies. Rather than a single BI tool, these Systems of Insight are each customized to fill specific needs in a vertical industry. As IBM adds more sources of specialized data and builds more of these systems, its portfolio will become increasingly powerful, Gilbert writes.

Image courtesy IBM