IBM has posted revenue of $18.2 billion, down 4.7%. But stated that its Cloud revenue growth accelerated in the quarter; rising overall to $19.5 billion over the last 12 months, up 10%.
If you take a look at some segments of the company, you can see:
IBM’s Global Business Services (which includes consulting, application management and global process services) saw flat revenues of $4.1 billion, flat year to year. Global Technology Services (includes infrastructure and cloud services and technology support services) generated revenues of $6.9 billion, down 7%. Systems (includes systems hardware and operating systems software) came in at only $1.3 billion, down a sizeable 11%, with IBM citing growth in Power, offset by the impact of the IBM Z product cycle dynamics and weakness in Storage.
“In the first quarter, our cloud revenue growth accelerated, and we again grew in key, high value areas in Cloud and Cognitive Software and in consulting,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. “IBM’s investments in innovative technologies coupled with our industry expertise and our commitment to trust and security position us well to help clients move to chapter two of their digital reinvention.”
IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat for $34 billion is expected to close in the second half of this year.
Enterprise Times: What does it mean?
It is sad to see IBM’s revenue falling again. 2017 was a year which saw the company break its streak of 22 quarters of falling revenue. Hopefully this does not see the company falling back into its old ways. That said, the Red Hat acquisition will undoubtedly see IBM make aggressive motions in the arena of cloud computing. IBM’s own Rometty predicts the hybrid cloud market as being worth $1 trillion and says IBM will be number one.
Watching this one play out will be fun, as will waiting for IBM’s Q2 results.