Twitter and IBM today announced a partnership that will help transform how businesses understand their customers, markets and trends using data collected from tweets worldwide. The alliance brings together Twitter data that represents the public pulse of the planet with IBM’s cloud-based analytics, customer engagement platforms, and consulting services.

IBM plans to offer Twitter data as part of select cloud-based services, including IBM Watson Analytics, which brings visualization and predictive capabilities to business users; and a cloud-based data refinery service that enables application developers to embed data services in applications. Entrepreneurs and software developers will also be able to integrate Twitter data into new cloud services they are building with IBM’s Watson Developer Cloud or IBM Bluemix platform-as-a-service.

In addition, IBM and Twitter will deliver a set of enterprise applications to help improve business decisions across industries and professions. The first solution will integrate Twitter data with IBM ExperienceOne customer engagement solutions, allowing sales, marketing, and customer service professionals to map sentiment and behavior to better engage and support their customers.

IBM Global Business Services professionals will have access to Twitter data to enrich consulting services for clients across business. Additionally, IBM and Twitter will collaborate to develop solutions for specific industries such as banking, consumer products, retail, and travel and transportation.