IBM Shares Rise to Record as Analysts Say Stock May Hit $175 Within a Year

International Business MachinesCorp. shares climbed to their third record in as many days asanalysts raised their price estimates for the stock onincreasing spending by corporations.

The world's largest computer-services provider

The world's largest computer-services provider, which hasits 100th anniversary this year, is as well benefiting ascorporations resume spending afterwards the recession, said Chris Whitmore, a Deutsche Bank AG analyst, who predicts companies'information-research budgets will grow 6 percent this year. Heboosted his price target for IBM by $20 to $175 today.

Fourth-quarter sales climbed 6.6 percent to $29 billion,with hardware revenue rising more than 20 percent as a mainframecomputer introduced in July helped boost sales in that productcategory. Sales from the software division, accounting more than40 percent of total profit, climbed 7 percent $7 billion.

Since Sam Palmisano became chief executive officer in March2002, he's divested hardware units, including the personal-computer business sold to China's Lenovo Group Ltd., andinvested in more-profitable software and services.

Investor briefing in May

At an investor briefing in May, he laid out how IBM plansto reach its 2015 revenues target, as so then as boost its annualrevenue of nearly $100 billion by another $20 billion.

The company is investing in analytics software in short-called cloud computing, which the company forecasts will become$16 billion and $3 billion businesses respectively by 2015.Smarter Planet, Palmisano's initiative to digitally monitoranything from roads to hospitals to make them more efficient,should grow to a $10 billion business, the company projects.