Posted on 08/22/2023 7:42:20 AM PDT by Brookhaven
IBM said Tuesday it’s selling its weather unit, including The Weather Channel, Weather.com, Weather Underground and Storm Radar.
IBM will sell the assets to Francisco Partners, a tech-focused private equity firm, for an undisclosed sum. The deal also includes the weather unit’s forecasting science and tech platform, as well as enterprise data services for the broadcast, media, aviation and ad tech industries. Francisco Partners plans to pivot part of the weather business to be more consumer-facing, adding new tools for users related to health and well-being, per the announcement.
As part of the deal, IBM will retain access to the company’s weather data, which it uses to power some of the artificial intelligence models it sells to enterprise clients. That system, which is also trained on NASA’s satellite data, is geared towards parsing ESG data and climate analysis such as natural disaster monitoring.
IBM paid $2 billion for the company in 2016 and has reportedly been exploring a sale since at least April, as it seeks to streamline its business. The company said its weather unit serves an average of 415 million people monthly, and reports in April estimated the coming deal to be valued at more than $1 billion.
The sale aligns with IBM’s strategy shift, as the company narrows its focus to key drivers such as software, cloud services and AI.
One of those bets is Watsonx, the enterprise AI development tool IBM announced in May that’s slated to debut in the third quarter. The company’s goal is to take the lead in user-friendly AI development for businesses, in part because of the massive demand for, and shortage of, human talent in the AI field. The platform includes a feature for AI-generated code, an AI governance toolkit, and a library of thousands of large-scale AI models, trained on language, geospatial data, IT events and The Weather Company’s weather data, which IBM will continue to use.
Not sure if that means layoffs of transfers to division in IBM.
Ironically, The Weather Channel was one of the few divisions that consistently made a profit.
IBM’s strategy to divest itself of its profitable divisions?
What was IBM doing owning the Weather Channel in the first place?
lol I had NO idea they owned those!
When I started in the IT business doing Tech support in 1981, IBM was the undisputed leader of the computer industry, and no one was a close second.
Now they are ditching the weather channel and basically a forgotten company run by bean counters.
Yes, and at a loss of 50% of what they paid for it 7 years ago. Great business model.
I grew up in an “IBM Town” in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Back then, everyone knew IBM, their trademark, brands, and products. IBM made the super-computers that sent men to the moon, mainframe computers the powered businesses, desk-top pc’s, laptop pc’s, electric typewriters, and software. It was the largest corporation in the world, with lot’s of cash on hand, and many employees became quite wealthy buying IBM stock at insider prices and then watching the shares split year after year, while paying a handsome dividend.
Thirty years later, most people born after Generation X never heard of IBM, and if they do recognize the name, they have no idea what IBM does.
Wonder if this buyer is a bunch of Leftist technocrats. If so, expect a lot more climate alarmism and less actual weather reporting from these outlets.
“Now they are ditching the weather channel and basically a forgotten company run by bean counters.”
I worked for them in Boulder. When I started in 99’ there were 5000 employees working there, now there are about 100 and they sold the building to the Canadians. I watched the CEO Ginny Rometty sell the company off and pocket a ton of cash.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a new “the weather channel” came out proving over and over that man is not responsible for climate change after all using science to prove it? The left would go into meltdown mode
IBM doesn’t own the Weather Channel:
The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group.[2][3]
The Weather Channel was a subsidiary of the Weather Company until the latter was bought by IBM in 2016.[7][8] The Weather Channel licenses its weather data from IBM.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weather_Channel
Oh no! Where can I get my climate fear porn?
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, lots of companies were starting or buying cable TV networks simply because they felt they had to. Cable was the future, and everyone felt pressured to add cable channels to their portfolios.
It's why Microsoft teamed up with NBC to create MSNBC.
Love Weather Underground.
It worked wonders for GE :)
Why in hell did they want to own an entity named Weather Underground. My wife uses and it thinks it’s the best. All I can think about is Bill Ayers. I will never refer to Weather Underground even if they are 100% correct.
And they tried to recapture the PC market with the PS/2?
They finally succeeded with the Thinkpad, which they later sold to China's Lenovo corp.
They helped to make Bill Gates a very rich man, licensing DOS versus buying it outright. Then tried to correct the mistake by spending millions on OS/2 which never really happened.
They like all the other companies of that era missed the PC revolution even though IBM helped invent it.
IBM purchased everything except the Cable channel.
There are actually two companies named “The Weather Channel”.
Open The Weather Channel app and go to the about screen. You’ll see the IBM logo right at the bottom.
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