This morning on the radio I heard that IBM had released fourth quarter and 2008 year end results, with the company reporting net income up 12%. But, the System i didn’t fare well in the company’s announced earnings, with a jaw-dropping decrease in revenue of 92% year-on-year. Last quarter, we reported that the System i revenue was down 82%. The explanation is that the company has combined the revenues from Systems i and p in the new converged System p numbers, and no longer attributes any new Power running i sales to the legacy system. On the positive side, revenues from the converged System p server products increased 8%, the only increase for the Systems and Technology hardware segment.
It seems that IBM, a company founded on “machines” has moved on and is now finding success in software, services and financing. In fact, IBM senior vice president and chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, told a conference call of financial analysts that the company derived 90% of it’s revenue from these segments. But Loughridge shared the company’s optimism going forward, “With the stimulus packages being put in place, the economies will start to improve as we go to the back half of the year. Likewise, for the first quarter our performance will be relatively flat, with growth especially in second half of the year.”
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