Why IBM spent billions buying a tech they already had access to

IBM reportedly paid about $2 billion for Weather Company's digital assets even though the two tech companies had already formed a partnership that gave IBM access to the company's weather data.

After securing the initial partnership IBM's Inhi Suh, VP and GM of Big Data, Integration, & Governance, realized that the Weather Company was working on some mind-blowing technology, she told Business Insider.

She realized that marrying that tech with IBM's own super smart computer Watson, which can analyze and predict things, would be a very powerful combination.

The Weather Company purchase goes beyond weather.

The team at IBM envisions a platform that is innovative "not only for business-to-business, but for every day society, with the potential of solving a whole set of problems," Suh explains.

That excitement was echoed by IBM CFO Martin Schroeter, who recently took part in a fireside chat at the MIT Sloan Summit where he talked about the acquisition's benefits outside of the weather sector.

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