IBM acquires the Weather Company as it builds IoT presence
IBM has closed a deal to acquire the Weather Company as it makes gains in its IoT capabilities.
The combination of technology from the two companies will serve as the foundation for the new Watson IoT Unit and Watson IoT Cloud platform, building on a $3bn commitment made by IBM in March 2015 to invest in related offerings and services.
The planned acquisition will bring together IBM’s cognitive and analytics platform and The Weather Company’s dynamic cloud data platform, which powers the fourth most-used mobile app daily in the US and handles 26 billion inquiries to its cloud-based services each day.
John Kelly, senior vice president, IBM Solutions Portfolio and Research said: “This powerful cloud platform will position IBM to arm entire industries with deep multimodal insights that will help enterprises gain clarity and take action from the oceans of data being generated around them.”
The tech corporation did not disclose the value of the deal, however the Weather Company was previously acquired in 2008 for $3.5bn by a consortium that included Bain, Blackstone and NBC Universal, according to Tech Crunch.