IBM bets big on Watson-branded cognitive computing

IBM sees cognitive computing as the new frontier of computing and is positioning its Watson architecture as the way forward in this new landscape, for both the company and its customers. In a New York event Thursday to launch the organization's new Watson business unit, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty touted the 2011 Watson victory on the "Jeopardy" game show as nothing less than a harbinger of a new era in computing. Today we are in the "programmable era" of computers, in which all the possible actions that a computer can take must be programmed in advance, she explained. In contrast, Watson is "a new species," Rometty said. Watson "is taught--it is not programmed. It runs by experience and from interaction. By design, it gets smarter over time and gives better judgments over time," Rometty said.