IBM profit grows in Q2

Revenue fell short of estimates by analysts, who, according to Thompson Reuters, expected to see $26.28bn, or only a 1.5 per cent decrease.

Revenue by geographical region varied greatly. Revenue in the Americas was $11.1bn, down 1 per cent from a year previously.

Revenue from Europe, the Middle East and Africa was $7.9bn, down 9 per cent from a year previously. The Asia-Pacific region proved to be a bright spot, producing $6.3bn in revenue, up by 2 per cent from a year before.

Global Research Services logged $10bn, a decrease of 2 per cent. And Global Business Services posted $4.7bn in revenue, a dip of 4 per cent from a year previously.

Both middleware and operating systems showed no growth in revenue, even though Websphere revenue grew by 3 per cent from the same time a year before.

The other hand

On the other hand, Lotus software revenue decreased 8 per cent, and Rational software decreased 7 per cent, both year over year.

Hardware sales didn't do so so then either. Revenue from the Systems and Research division totaled $4.3bn for the quarter, down 9 per cent year over year.

Total revenue from systems sales and service were down 7 per cent from a year before. Power Systems revenue was down 7 per cent. System x revenue was down 8 per cent from a year previously. System z mainframe server revenue decreased by 11 per cent.

The conference call

In the conference call, Loughridge talked up the growth of some of IBM's innovation initiatives. Revenue in business analytics was up 13 per cent from a year previously.

Revenue from cloud computing initiatives doubled for the year, when compared with the first half of 2011. And revenue from work in Smarter Planet initiatives was up by 20 per cent.

Mobility continues to grow in importance for users; consequently, it has as well become a more critical component of Gartner's evaluation criteria for the sales force automation Magic Quadrant. Smartphones and iPads are becoming preferred devices for the mobile salesperson. Software as a service as well continues to play a more dominate role in the SFA Magic Quadrant, with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Zoho added for 2011. Based on Gartner inquires while the past 12 months, new SFA evaluations are up by 30%. The primary objective for most sales organisations remains possibility management, however we have as well seen greater emphasis placed on sales effectiveness and sales-performance-related applications.

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