IBM Closes Weather Deal
IBM closed its acquisition of The Weather Company ’s B2B, mobile and cloud-based digital properties, weather.com, Weather Underground, The Weather Company brand and WSI, the global B2B brand. While the cable TV unit wasn’t acquired by IBM, it will license weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a long-term contract. Weather’s assets will be part of the Watson IoT Cloud platform. IBM expects the deal to extend the scale and capability of its cloud data platform and expand The Weather Company’s enterprise service offerings and consumer reach. IBM plans to bring weather.com to new markets such as China and India. As part of the acquisition, David Kenny, most recently chmn/CEO of the Weather Company, will lead the IBM Watson unit. The Weather Company will be led by Cameron Clayton, who was most recently its pres, product and technology. WSI, The Weather Company’s B2B brand, will now be known as The Weather Company, an IBM Business. “Heading into this new chapter as The Weather Channel Television Network, we have heightened focus on innovation, first-class storm coverage and hyper-localized weather information available through our various TV platforms including: The Weather Channel, WeatherScan and Local Now,” the net’s CEO Dave Shull said in a statement.