Well in this case I don't mind the weather being for the entire 30 minutes.
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.
Yes, that’s correct, they purchased all but the cable channel.
What IBM owns is called “The Weather Company”.
I still occasionally see IBM point-of-sale equipment.
This was a much better world when TV weather was restricted to five minutes of the local newscast.
Well in this case I don't mind the weather being for the entire 30 minutes.
They created it.
“Was buying the weather channel fulfilling its fiduciary responsibility instead of investing in something in the computer industry,”
Yes, they paid $2 billion and are selling it for $1 billion but they got back a ROI of about 10% annually in new revenue on their investment, so the “loss” is smaller than it seems.
The “computer industry” is not static, its always changing, and it is not a given that hardware is or must be at the top of that industry, and particularly when it comes to hardware people (as opposed to companies) use. The biggest tech companies today, other than apple, are NOT mostly “hardware” companies. The industry changed and IBM changed with it. IBM’s technology lives in its people/knowledge base and its thousands of patents (it makes over $1 billion a year just from its patents). Much “computer hardware” is, like a lot of computer chips, becoming commodities where volume is high and in many cases profit margins are low. “Hardware” is no longer IBM’s biggest business. Whereas today, IBM is among the top three “computer company” in providing cloud services - one of the fastest growing segments of the “computer industry”. Today “software” earns the biggest single unit share of IBM revenue.
In some ways IBM has reinevnted itself - what it does. And in some ways it is still mainly the “business” kind of compnay - mostly doing business for businesses, it has always been, and what business need, as far as “computers” has evolved with the technology and by the direction of the technology.
“In the 1980s/90s I had a friend whose brother worked for IBM. He told me that IBM viewed its core business as building and servicing mainframes; it considered home PCs as a small niche market. After all, how many ordinary consumers would even want a computer?”
Yes, in part they did not see the “PC wave” building “soon enough”, but their other hardware systems, for businesses, did adapt to the growth of PC-networking, making their hardware able to be employed in network integrations. But, in terms of the PC itself, IBM simply remained true to its roots - a business serving businesses much more than the consumer. I heard IBMs tell me that some IBM execs, early on, were worried their many business customers were unprepared for the changes for the “PC wave” and would resent IBM pushing them into it or leaving them behind beacuuse they would be unable to change or adapt their application systems fast enough. So yes, IBM appeared to others to be moving too slowly.
In my own shop the transiton was inremental and gradual and not an overnight wholesale change.
Back in the day, IBM was also known as “I’ve Been Moved.”
“Now they are ditching the weather channel and basically a forgotten company run by bean counters.”
And everyone is a manager.
The demise of IBM began with Akers in 1985.
Yes they made money from the sale of the weather channel that’s not the point, IBM is in the technology business the spent on the weather channel could have been spent on their core business to make make better computers, offer more services, etc. versus buying a cable channel that has nothing to do with their core business and that’s one of the reasons IBM is basically a forgotten company from one that was the dominant company in the business
And it has the most popular mobile app in the world titled...”The Weather Channel” app.
Of course IBM has rights to use “The Weather Channel” name for some of the products of “The Weather Company”.
IBM didn’t purchaase the cable channel, that went to another company called Entertainment Studios, owned by Allen Media Group LLC.
IBM’s press releases about their purchase of The Weather Company made it pretty clear that they did not purchase the cable channel.
The article posted that started this thread clearly states the purchased the weather channel in 2016 for 2 billion and the current value is 1 billion, basically 1 billion down the drain in a business they knew nothing about.
Quote from the article:
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.
Link to entire article.
Smart move since they never talk about the weather.
They changed the name to “The Weather Company” about 2 years ago.
Prior to that, it was literally and legally “The Weather Channel” and was owned by IBM.
Yea, there were two companies using the same name. One of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen.
When the Cable channel stated they were going to start a weather app named “The Weather Channel” is when things got changed. IBM changed the name to “The Weather Company” and the cable channel agreed not to create an app. IBM got the rights to “The Weather Channel” for app usage.
and OS/2 id still out there and being updated not by IBM, but by other companies.
The article suggests that IBM is losing money on the deal.
FTA: IBM will retain access to the company’s weather data
The weather forecast is always wrong.
They buy in 2016 for $2 billion and sell in 2023 at a $1 billion loss.
Wow great cash burn. It’s probably worth 50 cents.
I hadn’t watched WC in years but I turned it on when TS Hilary was hitting California.
You’d think it was worse than Katrina. Some jack@ss out there in the street with a couple inches of water.
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