IBM Takes On Analytics and OptimizationIBM Takes On Analytics and Optimization

I'm just back from IBM's Research center in Hawthorne, NY, where company officials today announced a new "IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Services" practice. The name and formalized organization are new, but executives took pains to explain that today's event was more of an unveiling of an initiative that has been in the works -- across IBM Global Business Services (GBS), the IBM Software Group and IBM Research -- for at least a few years. What's more, it's "hitting the ground running" with more than 4,000 consultants dedicated to the practice across the globe.

I didn't detect any rumblings about this "a few years" back, but I have consistently heard IBM underscoring the word "analytics" since the coronation of the Cognos acquisition back in February of 2008. It was there that Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group, declared, "we've not been seen as a company that was doing business intelligence [before acquiring Cognos]... but IBM has been a leader in delivering unique, sophisticated analytic capabilities."It was at last year's event that Mills introduced Brenda Dietrich, vice president of Business Analytics and Mathematical Sciences, who talked about her unit's experience in helping companies to design deep analytics functions. At today's event, Dietrich explained that over the last year or so her group has been sharing its knowledge with GBS consultants and finding ways to integrate analytics with IBM's software.

And speaking of software, Ambuj Goyal, GM of Information Management at IBM's Software Group, was also there today to talk about "trusted information" and all the technology/software IBM has acquired to provide a foundational platform for analytics and optimization. He stuck to many of the themes he laid out in this interview, but he did not repeat his "it's being used like a hammer" assertion that predictive analytics are often misapplied when other forms of analytics would be more appropriate.

No, Goyal and other IBM executives were only too happy to embrace the popular notion of prediction today. My question during today's Q&A session was "is this all about consulting and customization, or do you plan to teach companies how to do this and provide software (a la SAS and SPSS) so they can do this on their own?"

A number of IBMers responded to the question, but Goyal answered my question most directly when he said, "analytics needs to move from the back office to the front office. There are small decisions, transactions and interactions happening every day that are not being handled by deep business analysts."

Yes, you can do scoring functions with tools from companies like SPSS and SAS, Goyal acknowledged, and those comapnies partners in many implementations, he pointed out. "But the new pervasive, real-time intelligence that we're talking about here has to happen where ordinary workers can use it, without even realizing they are using it, at the point of the decision or contact with the customer," he said.

Sounds good, but I'm still unclear on whether this is the "give a man a fish" or the "teach a man to fish" model of satisfying a hunger in the business and public sector IT community.I'm just back from an IBM research center in Hawthorne, NY, where company officials today announced a new "IBM Business Analytics & Optimization Services" practice. The name and organization are new, but executives explained that it's more of an unveiling of a longstanding services, software and research initiative...