Doug Meil's Book Says IBM Killed Explorys by 2018 After Building Watson Health Through $4 Billion in Deals
Updated
Updated · cleveland.com · May 30
Doug Meil's Book Says IBM Killed Explorys by 2018 After Building Watson Health Through $4 Billion in Deals
1 articles · Updated · cleveland.com · May 30
Doug Meil’s new book says Explorys was “functionally dead” by fall 2018, years before IBM exited Watson Health, blaming the Cleveland startup’s collapse on IBM’s integration after its 2015 acquisition.
IBM bureaucracy, forced technology changes and management pressure to do things “the IBM way” undid practices that had helped Explorys grow, Meil writes, leaving the business with few customers and no new sales.
Explorys had been founded in 2009 through Cleveland Clinic Innovations and grew to about 230 employees under IBM, with roughly 35 health systems as customers at its peak and early projections of 1,000 jobs.
The Cleveland fallout became visible in a new office built for up to 300 workers that was largely empty by the time staff moved in; only a handful remained when the pandemic hit in 2020.
IBM sold Watson Health in 2022 after assembling the division through about $4 billion in acquisitions and reportedly seeking just $1 billion, while the long-vacant Cleveland building is now being repurposed by Canon.
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