IBM to buy Weather Company's digital assets

IBM will buy the Weather Company's digital assets to boost its Watson cloud and internet of things platforms.

IBM did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, which does not include the Weather Channel, but the Wall Street Journal reported it would be valued at more than US$2 billion (A$2.8 billion).

The Weather Channel will use weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a long-term contract.

The deal highlights IBM's focus on high-growth areas such as cloud computing and analytics as it dumps low-margin businesses such as cash registers, low-end servers and semiconductors.

The US-based Weather Company is currently owned by private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital and Comcast's NBC Universal, which bought the firm in 2008 for about US3.5 billion.