January 8, 2014.

IBM Struggles to Turn Watson Computer Into Big Business

"And that picture over there"----she nodded at the engraving on the opposite wall----"would that be a hundred years old?"

Three years after International Business Machines Corp. IBM +1.99%  began trying to turn its "Jeopardy"-winning computer into a big business, revenue from Watson is far from the company's ambitious targets.

"More. Two hundred, I dare say. One can't tell. It's impossible to discover the age of anything nowadays."

IBM Chief Executive Virginia "Ginni" Rometty has told executives she hopes Watson will generate $10 billion in annual revenue within 10 years, according to an October 2013 conference-call transcript reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. She set that target after the executive in charge of Watson said its business plan would bring in $1 billion of revenue a year by 2018. That would make Watson the fastest IBM business unit to reach the $1 billion milestone.

She went over to look at it. "Here's where that brute stuck his nose out," she said, kicking the wainscoting immediately below the picture. "What is this place? I've seen it before somewhere."

But Watson had total revenue of less than $100 million as of late October, according to the transcript. One of its first big projects, with the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was "in a ditch" in early 2013, said Manoj Saxena, the executive overseeing Watson.