IBM buys digital side of Weather Channel: raises cool potential

Weather keeps poking its rainy, sunny, chilly, windy face into our business.

And we're about to find out whether a combo of one of the world's biggest tech companies with a weather forecasting powerhouse might change how industries operate.

IBM recently announced a deal to buy the digital and business-to-business forecasting side of Cobb County-based Weather Company, the parent of the Weather Channel. (IBM isn’t buying the Weather Channel, which will remain on its own for the moment at least.)

The purchase, which includes weather.com and related apps and other operations, hints at new ways consumers might be impacted by business capitalizing on more access to localized weather predictions. In the future, makers of self-driving cars could set the vehicles to react to what conditions are ahead. Retailers could rearrange what they do. Our alarms clocks could wake us early if rain threatens the morning commute.

ExploreCheck out more of what’s ahead, including questions about how IBM will deal with regular consumers, in the latest Unofficial Business column on myAJC.com.

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