Dive Brief:
- IBM will invest $200 million in a new headquarters in Munich for its IoT business, the company announced Monday — the latest investment in IoT by the computer giant.
- The headquarters will include industry labs where partners and IBM staff will "tackle the toughest challenges of their respective industries," the company said.
- The investment is part of $3 billion IBM will spend "to bring Watson cognitive computing to IoT," according to the company.
Dive Insight:
IBM has been making big news around IoT and investing heavily in the technology. Last March, the company announced that it would invest more than $3 billion to "address the needs of clients that are looking to capitalize on the increasing instrumentation and interconnectedness of the world driven by the IoT."
The company has also opened eight new Watson IoT Client Experience Centers across Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Earlier this year, IBM announced broad layoffs as part of its plan to "rebalance" its workforce. The company has been looking to build its cognitive computing, cloud and IoT businesses and shift away from its older business platforms. Some believe the layoffs are a sign the company is not shifting its business model fast enough to remain profitable. But now the company says those investments are about to start paying off.
"We think 2019 is going to be that inflection curve where the market really takes off," IDC IoT analyst Vernon Turner told Reuters.
An IDC report released last month found IoT is moving from proof of concept to reality, with 31.4% of organizations surveyed having launched IoT solutions and another 43% looking to deploy in the next year.
