This makes me worried for Apple. IBM is not a company that comes to mind when I think of cutting edge cloud services, and Watson in particular has seemed to be a pretty mediocre product with heavy marketing and gimmicks (Jeopardy and H&R Block come to mind).
Does Apple really think that it would be better to outsource cloud services to IBM than develop their own? To me, it looks like Apple lacks confidence in their own internal abilities, and that’s not a good look.
> Does Apple really think that it would be better to outsource cloud services to IBM than develop their own? To me, it looks like Apple lacks confidence in their own internal abilities, and that’s not a good look.
I think it's a good move. At the very least, they can learn a bit from someone else on how to run a cloud service.
Let me ask you this -- if you didn't already have the Apple hardware that was integrated with iCloud et al, would you pay money to use any of the Apple internet services? Like if they build Windows clients and you had Windows, would you pay to use any of their services?
I can't think of a single Apple service I would pay for if I wasn't on Apple hardware. And even worse, despite the free services from Apple, I will pay to use competitors that offer a worse integration, just to not use the Apple services.
This isn't outsourcing, it is advertising. Apple and IBM have complimentary services that they've just made easier to integrate.
There is a vacuum in the Enterprise from when Blackberry was the go-to device. This smells of an in-road Apple might be taking to make itself the defacto Mobile Device for Enterprise.
IBM benefits from this by being able to market Watson services easier to App makers.
>Does Apple really think that it would be better to outsource cloud services to IBM than develop their own? To me, it looks like Apple lacks confidence in their own internal abilities, and that’s not a good look.
Apple doesn't outsource their Cloud services to IBM. This story is not about that at all.
(They do use Azure and Google Cloud though, and perhaps Amazon too).
>IBM is not a company that comes to mind when I think of cutting edge cloud services
"Cloud services" is a pretty nebulous term. When it comes to ML cloud services I don't think there are any clear leaders. AWS services don't really compare to this.
Just spent a few minutes playing with the Watson Custom Model for vision flow and let's just say I am totally disappointed is an understatement, few things I noticed:
1. You first need to register an account, and to my surprise there is no command line tool or REST APIs, the entire interface is written in HTML. Hmmm, are they expecting me to specify the network structure by pressing buttons
2. Okay next, after choosing the visual model, it leads you directly to a web page with a bunch of widgets where you can add classes and negatives. To a seasoned ML engineers, this whole interface is useless. The classification has to be done at a full image level, no way to define the layers, the loss function, or any knobs to play around with the network. To an amateur, this is also very confusing. What are they expecting us to drag in to the negatives, if it's a logistic classifier, I could understand but for classifying an image, what exactly do you expect us to put?
3. Btw, to upload images, they expect .zip format, and this is where i stopped. Do they seriously think I will now export this so-called "model" to CoreML and load it to my Xcode?
If they came up with this 5 years ago I might play with it a little longer, but don't the IBM engineers keep up with what's going on at GOOGL, FB or AMZN. I can't possibly imagine anyone using this to develop iPhone apps for the purpose of image recognition, even if it's an offline flow.
Of course you can't imagine anyone using it because (a) you are not the target audience and (b) you are being deliberately contemptuous about the product because it was built by IBM.
If you simply re-read all your own points from an objective standpoint, it should be apparent that this is geared towards individuals who have minimal or no machine learning (much less deep learning) experience; but nevertheless feel they need features like custom image recognition in their application. Rather than spending time and money hiring a 'seasoned ML engineer' such as yourself, they can try this and see if it works well enough for their purposes. Everything from the HTML interface, dearth of model customization, no parameter tuning, etc. points to this use case. Yes, it will be tedious, time consuming, and perhaps a bit unintuitive at first but it will be nowhere near as difficult for them than if they were to build an equivalent data pipeline, neural network, and evaluation setup on specialized hardware using Tensorflow. From that perspective, this could be a great product for application developers.
Finally, there are tons of REST APIs that enumerate all the functionality found here. They are all part of the Watson Cloud catalog. This includes loading data, training, and deploying models. Moreover, is it really necessary to insult IBM engineers by insinuating that they haven't kept up with the broader paradigm shifts in the field? They build what they are told to build by management (just like at the Big 4).
"no way to define the layers, the loss function, or any knobs to play around with the network". -- This is the point of the service - to enable the (vast group of) users who want to custom-classify images of X/Y/Z without having to understand the difference between momentum and learning rate, or hire people who do. If you do want full control of the model, you should look at Deep Learning as a Service - https://www.ibm.com/cloud/deep-learning
I think there is definitely space for improvement for 2 and 3, but then you would need to collect your own data. Are you a developer? We should talk if you're considering CoreML as we (Polarr) have ready to use, battle tested CoreML models for various computer vision purposes (email in my profile.)
I don't understand why most of the comment here are negative. On the bright side, being able to train a model in any sort of cloud (doesn't matter if it is Azure, Google, AWS, or IBM) and then directly create CoreML models, and iterate from model feedback, is a pretty special and unique position. It's a hybrid edge + cloud approach to running A.I. for end applications, and I do see it to benefit developers who want to roll their own models and create new applications particularly to computer vision, photography, and videos.
I remember as part of that partnership IBM released a version of their MobileFirst tooling that was identical to a previous version except it had Android support removed.
Seeking out possible moves to keep Apple on the leading edge of technology and user experience, a determined Tim Cook arrived at page 103 of his Strategic Decision Making in Information Technology textbook, and came across what some may call ancient wisdom -- such wisdom that seemed peculiarly familiar, as though it was encoded into his subconscious from birth. Left alone in center aligned bold text along the top of the page was scribed "NO ONE GETS FIRED FOR PARTNERING WITH IBM".
Tim, being the savvy executive and decision maker he will always be, concluded that the only logical choice is to make the decision which will virtually nullify his chance of getting fired. "Your legacy shall not go to waste, Steve...", he said under his breath as he picked up the phone.
Probably selective memory on my part but outside of a few research projects I cannot recall the last successful venture to come from IBM since the Space Shuttle onboard computers. (edit) also laptops when they made hardware but they sold off a lot of divisions it seems.
There is no pricing information easily available. Is it free, or are people supposed to invest time into learning, and then find out what it costs to go live?
Yes. I can imagine it because they've already done so repeatedly. The first case I can think of was Apple working with IBM on the Taligent operating system (designed to compete with what became NT and NeXTStep) circa 1988. Then the PowerPC chip at the center of Macs for years was co-developed with Apple, IBM, and Motorola, and in later years IBM supplied the actual chips. Also, the Apple Network Server machines (circa 1996) ran AIX.
brokencode|8 years ago
Does Apple really think that it would be better to outsource cloud services to IBM than develop their own? To me, it looks like Apple lacks confidence in their own internal abilities, and that’s not a good look.
zapita|8 years ago
It just happens that cloud services is IBM's preferred method of selling enterprise software and services.
jedberg|8 years ago
I think it's a good move. At the very least, they can learn a bit from someone else on how to run a cloud service.
Let me ask you this -- if you didn't already have the Apple hardware that was integrated with iCloud et al, would you pay money to use any of the Apple internet services? Like if they build Windows clients and you had Windows, would you pay to use any of their services?
I can't think of a single Apple service I would pay for if I wasn't on Apple hardware. And even worse, despite the free services from Apple, I will pay to use competitors that offer a worse integration, just to not use the Apple services.
cptskippy|8 years ago
There is a vacuum in the Enterprise from when Blackberry was the go-to device. This smells of an in-road Apple might be taking to make itself the defacto Mobile Device for Enterprise.
IBM benefits from this by being able to market Watson services easier to App makers.
threeseed|8 years ago
Show me any other cloud provider with hosted MongoDB, JanusGraph, Etcd, ScyllaDB, RethinkDB as well as Cloudant itself.
If it wasn't for the pricing I would definitely have considered IBM Cloud for my project.
godzillabrennus|8 years ago
Apple has proven that a partnership with an established vendor can be their first step into a market they want to own.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.engadget.com/amp/2005/09/07...
coldtea|8 years ago
Yeah, Apple is doomed /s
>Does Apple really think that it would be better to outsource cloud services to IBM than develop their own? To me, it looks like Apple lacks confidence in their own internal abilities, and that’s not a good look.
Apple doesn't outsource their Cloud services to IBM. This story is not about that at all.
(They do use Azure and Google Cloud though, and perhaps Amazon too).
pathseeker|8 years ago
"Cloud services" is a pretty nebulous term. When it comes to ML cloud services I don't think there are any clear leaders. AWS services don't really compare to this.
jldugger|8 years ago
But Apple is?
IBM|8 years ago
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreml/converting_...
lemming|8 years ago
FWIW, I thought that Watson playing Jeopardy was flat out amazing.
tinus_hn|8 years ago
Apple pushes someone else’s stuff: They lack confidence! They look weak!
Spooky23|8 years ago
zhyan7109|8 years ago
If they came up with this 5 years ago I might play with it a little longer, but don't the IBM engineers keep up with what's going on at GOOGL, FB or AMZN. I can't possibly imagine anyone using this to develop iPhone apps for the purpose of image recognition, even if it's an offline flow.
Intrepidy|8 years ago
If you simply re-read all your own points from an objective standpoint, it should be apparent that this is geared towards individuals who have minimal or no machine learning (much less deep learning) experience; but nevertheless feel they need features like custom image recognition in their application. Rather than spending time and money hiring a 'seasoned ML engineer' such as yourself, they can try this and see if it works well enough for their purposes. Everything from the HTML interface, dearth of model customization, no parameter tuning, etc. points to this use case. Yes, it will be tedious, time consuming, and perhaps a bit unintuitive at first but it will be nowhere near as difficult for them than if they were to build an equivalent data pipeline, neural network, and evaluation setup on specialized hardware using Tensorflow. From that perspective, this could be a great product for application developers.
Finally, there are tons of REST APIs that enumerate all the functionality found here. They are all part of the Watson Cloud catalog. This includes loading data, training, and deploying models. Moreover, is it really necessary to insult IBM engineers by insinuating that they haven't kept up with the broader paradigm shifts in the field? They build what they are told to build by management (just like at the Big 4).
matt_ny|8 years ago
"no way to define the layers, the loss function, or any knobs to play around with the network". -- This is the point of the service - to enable the (vast group of) users who want to custom-classify images of X/Y/Z without having to understand the difference between momentum and learning rate, or hire people who do. If you do want full control of the model, you should look at Deep Learning as a Service - https://www.ibm.com/cloud/deep-learning
brisance|8 years ago
bwang29|8 years ago
bwang29|8 years ago
yvsong|8 years ago
wpasc|8 years ago
Outside of that, IBM/Watson seems like a comparatively bad choice of partners.
patwolf|8 years ago
I remember as part of that partnership IBM released a version of their MobileFirst tooling that was identical to a previous version except it had Android support removed.
jaxondu|8 years ago
nik736|8 years ago
david-cako|8 years ago
Tim, being the savvy executive and decision maker he will always be, concluded that the only logical choice is to make the decision which will virtually nullify his chance of getting fired. "Your legacy shall not go to waste, Steve...", he said under his breath as he picked up the phone.
stevenwoo|8 years ago
brisance|8 years ago
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/apple-developer/faq
Resources here.
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/apple-developer/resources
CodeSheikh|8 years ago
michaericalribo|8 years ago
It's a shame Watson's been so disappointing (eg MD Anderson Cancer platform), maybe it can start a support group with Stephen Wolfram...
tzahola|8 years ago
edko|8 years ago
binarytide|8 years ago
gaius|8 years ago
Can you imagine the company that made this getting into bed with IBM!?
jdboyd|8 years ago
pavlov|8 years ago
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/04/business/ibm-and-apple-gi...
Since then, the Apple-IBM relationship seems to be the longest “on again, off again” in computing.
pktgen|8 years ago
Remember PowerPC Macs?