[ippisl]

I wonder what would be the best strategy for google to monetize such an asset as ibm watson? Surely ads based model is not the best way(since they've already got a large part of the internet ad market and given that only google, ibm and maybe microsoft could build something similar.

If it's a truly competitive advantage, wouldn't offering it for startups/other-businesses in return for equity would offer bigger profits?

[alok-g]

My best understanding is that Watson would be too costly as compared to Google.

[ippisl]

They say now it's "a pizza-box-sized server".

[alok-g]

Thanks. I could find some references using those keywords!

Do you then also know about the cost per query as compared to a Google search? Or alternatively, how much concurrent traffic can they handle with that server?

[ippisl]

I don't know, but i don't think that really matters. google mostly deals the "cheap" stuff, while watson deals with really valuable stuff , so compute cost is is not so important.

I think there was a query on quora about this.

[fyi80]

Watson-ish system is IBM's medical diagnostics system.

and Google Search is basically Watson.

[ippisl]

One application of watson is in medical diagnostics. They are working on other applications in finance, helping to develop drugs, predicting when industrial machines need maintenance and even coming up with novel recipes for tasty foods.

Basically, by reading and understanding large amounts of text, it can help you validate an hypothesis or even lead you to new hypothesis.