Dive Brief:
- IBM says it will buy the Weather Company’s business-to-business, mobile and cloud-based web properties, Variety reports.
- The Weather Channel said it plans to license weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a long-term contract.
- The acquisition is valued at more than $2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Dive Insight:
IBM and the Weather Company have been working together for a while. The two formed a partnership earlier this year, under which IBM licensed its cloud-based data platform and collaborated with the Weather Company’s B2B division on solutions tailored to specific industries.
The deal will allow IBM to extend its Watson Internet of Things unit and allow it to deliver “new kinds of advanced weather analytics to customers in multiple industries, such as retail, airlines and transportation.”
The Weather Company’s consumer-facing mobile and Weather.com properties generate 82 million unique monthly visitors.
“The Weather Company’s extremely high-volume data platform, coupled with IBM’s global cloud and the advanced cognitive computing capabilities of Watson, will be unsurpassed in the Internet of Things, providing our clients significant competitive advantage as they link their business and sensor data with weather and other pertinent information in real time,” said John Kelly, senior VP, IBM Solutions Portfolio and Research.
The companies expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2016, pending regulatory approvals. The Weather Channel will remain separate.
