Large data 2015 years or into IBM core business

The December 24 news, according to foreign media reports, as the end of 2014 days getting closer, IBM's share price is still hovering. The growth in IBM's earnings over the past 10 years has been breathtaking. However, after the 2014 IBM's performance began to decline, some market analysts for the 2015 IBM performance is not too high expectations. In my opinion, IBM has lagged behind in the increasingly fierce industry competition, but the comforting IBM is actively transforming itself. Looking forward to 2015, I think IBM will still face a series of development opportunities, and IBM can seize the opportunity to achieve a breakthrough in performance is worth looking forward to.

IBM's last large-scale transformation dates back to the early the 1990s, when IBM's main business was faced with huge losses due to drastic changes in the PC and server markets, in which case IBM got a new chief executive, Gerstner (Louis V). Gerstner, under the leadership of the new boss, IBM quickly adjusted to the software and services industry, which is now IBM in the global software market has a certain voice of the root cause.

The changing pattern of the global IT market is clearly different from the the 1990s. Cloud technology has become one of the drivers of the development of the IT era, but also in the face of drastic changes in the industry market, this time IBM will not be exposed to the same short board as 25 years ago. The rapid development of the global hardware market made it possible for IBM to keep up with the industry's changes, proving that the "dragged away" IBM performance was unsatisfactory. In the face of the advances in cloud technology, IBM is proactively adapting itself to meet market demands, which in turn will make it more likely that IBM faces more development opportunities in the future.

The author believes that large data will become the most significant area of IBM's business growth. Large data is nothing more than the collection and analysis of massive data, in fact IBM has launched a large data market product--watson. Watson now provides services to users through the cloud, while at the same time playing a role in many other sectors. IBM signed a partnership agreement with Twitter this October, and IBM incorporated user data from Twitter into Watson, which allows business customers to discover the consumer habits that they had never noticed before, through Watson's analysis of a large number of data. Another example of Watson's successful application in practice is this month. IBM signed a cooperation agreement with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this month, which will use Watson to analyze the medical records of all U.S. veterans in order to provide patients with higher quality and efficient medical services. IBM, in its assessment of its cooperation with the U.S. Veterans Department, stressed that the size of the U.S. Veterans department's medical records would increase by one times every three years, and that only Watson could afford to analyze such large numbers of data.

When IBM launched Watson earlier this year, IBM chief executive Rometty had said that IBM's development goal for Watson was to grow to tens of billions of dollars within 10 years. Rometty's argument seems to be "Fangweising". Watson's share of IBM's many businesses is only a handful, but I think Watson's development potential is not to be underestimated. According to IDC, a market-research firm, the annual growth in the world's largest data technology and services market will remain at 26% per cent since the beginning of this year, when the overall market value is expected to reach $41.5 billion trillion.

The author wants to remind investors that "Rome was not built in a day", and that IBM's transformation could not be achieved in a short time. The author predicts that IBM may still suffer from some performance growth in 2015, despite the fact that next year IBM's Watson and large data business will sign more orders, but this is only a drop in the bucket for IBM's development. 2015 IBM's source of performance will still be occupied by traditional software and services, and the hardware business will continue to face greater development pressure.

Timothy Green, the author of this article, is a freelance writer for the Motley Fool, a well-known U.S. financial site.

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)