COMMON attendees got a rare in-depth look into the technology behind the Jeopardy!-winning POWER7-based Watson computer Sunday in what many said was one of the best Opening Sessions of the annual meeting in recent memory.

Dr. Eric Brown, one of the leaders of the IBM Research team that developed Watson, teased attendees with Jeopardy!-style questions before going into detail on the unstructured language search technology that allowed Watson to prevail against Jeopardy!'s best players during its recent television debut.

Tom Rosamilia, IBM general manager of Power and z Systems, noted that the DeepQA technology underlying Watson is expected to have application in many fields, including science, healthcare, financial services, and other industries.

Rosamilia introduced Brown and the accomplishments that went into developing Watson following the presentation of a colorful and nostalgic—for many longtime industry attendees—video of IBM technology milestones during the past 100 years.

He also noted the significant bump in sales during the first quarter of Power and System z hardware that has put the Systems and Technology group on an upward trajectory for 2011.