International Business Machines Corp

IBM had raised its dividend for the 27th consecutive time. What does IBM’s dividend increase amount to and can it maintain its dividends?

DBaaS makes it easier to build applications in the cloud. This is why DBaaS is expected to become a dominant deployment model for all databases.

Microsoft (MSFT) is behind only Amazon (AMZN) in the overall cloud space.

Earlier in the series, we discussed IBM’s (IBM) geographical revenues and the impact of currency fluctuations, especially the US dollar’s (UUP) impact on the company’s fiscal 4Q17 results.

According to Gartner, server market revenues grew 2.8% to ~$13.9 billion, while shipments grew 2.4% to ~2.8 million units in 2Q17.

On May 21, 2015, HP (HPQ) officially announced the sale of its 51% share in H3C Technologies to China-based Tsinghua Holdings subsidiary, Unisplendour.

Earlier in the series, we discussed IBM’s improved position in the cloud space due to its prowess in the hybrid cloud space.

Amazon’s AWS is a fast-growing business for the company that saw its revenues rise by 55% YoY (year-over-year) to over $3.2 billion in 3Q16.

IBM’s Strategic Imperatives segment is increasingly focused on IoT (Internet of Things), AI (artificial intelligence), and Blockchain technologies.

International Business Machines (IBM) reported its 2Q17 results on Tuesday, July 18. The company reported falling quarterly profits and sales yet again.

Oracle was trading at a forward EV-to-EBITDA multiple of ~8.6x on June 29, 2016.

Microsoft, Amazon, and other vendors are pursuing a $278.3 billion revenue opportunity in the global public cloud market, according to the latest Gartner estimates.

Are markets upbeat on potential tax reforms? The markets (SPY) (IVV) surged last week with the announcement of a phenomenal update on the corporate tax cut. The S&P and Nasdaq Comp gained ~2% in the week ended February 10, 2017. The Trump administration’s proposed tax cut is likely to boost the economy, though analysts have […]

Intel gained a lion’s share in the PC and sever space. However, IBM’s Power Architecture may challenge Intel’s dominance in the server market in the future.

In late 2016, Oracle (ORCL) launched the second generation of its IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) offering, Oracle Bare Metal Cloud.

For fiscal 3Q17, analysts expect Salesforce (CRM) to post revenue and non-GAAP EPS (earnings per share) of ~$2.12 billion and $0.21, respectively.

As of October 2017, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) stock has returned 3.2% in the past month and 31.4% over the past four quarters.

Apple continues its bond sale trend in 2017 Earlier in this series, we discussed how IBM had continued its trend of share buybacks, and how the IT (Information Technology) sector continued to be the top spender among industries. In early February 2017, Apple (APPL) raised $10 billion in debt. The Financial Times, citing Dealogic estimates, stated […]

Ericsson (ERIC) is expected to announce its 2Q17 results on July 18, 2017. Analysts expect Ericsson to post revenue of $5.7 billion with a low estimate of $5.6 billion and a high estimate of $5.8 billion for the quarter.

Despite growth in the server market after five quarters, IBM’s Systems segment failed to benefit from it.

Social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (or SMAC) is a disruptive technology that’s transforming the current IT environment at a rapid pace. Many technology leaders, who failed to acknowledge its importance or were slow in embracing it, are suffering. HP has been impacted by SMAC.

In the past ten quarters including fiscal 1Q17, Oracle’s revenues have missed analyst expectations nine times.

Microsoft stock closed at $101.87 on June 20, close to its lower Bollinger Band of $98.

HP’s (HPQ) split into HP Inc. and HP Enterprise will finalize by November of 2015.

IBM was trading at a forward EV-to-EBITDA multiple of 8.77x on April 8, 2016. This was lower than Microsoft’s and Oracle’s at 10.22x and 9.10x, respectively.

While there is no denying that China (FXI) needs stimulus measures to kickstart its slowing economy, any propping up needs to be done in a way to avoid another debt-fueled crisis.

In sync with IBM’s Strategic Imperatives In the previous part of this series, we discussed IBM’s (IBM) acquisition of Agile 3 Solutions. According to IBM, Agile 3 Solutions marks the company’s 20th security-related acquisition aimed at enhancing its expertise in the cybersecurity space. Since 2015, IBM has employed or hired 1,900 security experts. It has also […]

Salesforce is a prominent player in the software space, along with Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM), and SAP (SAP).

Oracle’s Services segment is composed of consulting, customer support, and education services for its products and services.

Oracle’s tepid top- and bottom-line guidance for fiscal Q1 2019 has affected its stock price.

Amazon’s cloud-computing segment, Amazon Web Services, is growing at a rapid rate. It continues to maintain a market-leading position in the cloud space.

Although UBS is wary of Oracle’s transition to the cloud, Oracle has managed to achieve high growth rates consistently in this space.

As earnings reports and analyst call transcripts show, many of the companies reporting sales misses cited the strong dollar as a contributing factor.

Recently, the hybrid cloud space has been seeing a lot of activity. Microsoft is not the only company interested in the hybrid cloud space.

IBM strengthened its ties with leading financial company Krungsri to help the financial company achieve its digital transition goal.

With the development of 7-nm chips, IBM has surpassed Intel, which is still working on 10-nm chips.

Under pressure to impress consumers, Apple (AAPL) is reportedly working on radical designs for the iPhone 8, which could include a curved display.

Amazon (AMZN) is expanding its cloud footprint in Latin America as it pursues growth overseas.

Following in the footsteps of tech giants IBM (IBM) and Microsoft (MSFT), which partnered to expand and strengthen their offerings, FireEye is also entering an industry partnership with Microsoft.

NetApp (NTAP) has reduced its cost base so far in fiscal 2017 in an effort to offset declining revenues.

IBM pointed to the strengthening US dollar for the decline in its revenues, which fell by 13.5% in fiscal 2Q15. On a constant currency basis, revenue only declined by 1%.

The Apple Watch is the biggest threat to Fitbit despite its being released only recently. In April, Apple released the Watch in nine countries.

IBM’s Hardware segment was the worst-hit operating segment in fiscal 3Q15, registering a revenue fall of 39% on a year-over-year basis to $1.5 billion.

AMD developed the concept of Moore’s Law Plus to drive future innovation.

On April 5, 2016, the Bank of Ireland (IREBY) stated that in collaboration with Deloitte, the bank has successfully finished a joint proof-of-concept blockchain trial.

Legacy storage vendors like EMC (EMC), IBM (IBM), and NetApp (NTAP) are witnessing a decline in their market share.

Of the 27 analyst recommendations on IBM stock, 56% were “hold” as of July 8, 2016. About 26% were “buy” recommendations, and 19% were “sell.”

As Microsoft gears up to report its earnings, the stock has soared this year. The company’s stock price has risen 34% in 2020.

In its fiscal 2Q15 earnings release, IBM stated that its customers are moving away from big on-premise ERP projects towards smaller projects.

Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud all include enterprise AI solutions such as translation, NLP (natural language processing), and image recognition.

IBM’s Cognitive Solutions segment’s revenues grew by 3.5% to $4.7 billion in fiscal 2Q16. In this segment, cloud revenues grew by 55%.

Apple has tried its best to popularize the Apple Watch. A couple of months ago, Apple and IBM (IBM) added three new apps for Apple Watch.

Red Hat (RHT), a leading Linux software and open-source provider, was the latest in the technology space to announce its fiscal 4Q16 earnings.

Twitter (TWTR) announced earlier this year that it was deploying AI to crack down on bad actors on its platform.

IBM saw its shares fall 8.2% in April, after the firm reported its 1Q17 results. IBM reported revenue of $18.2 billion for 1Q17—slightly below the analyst estimate.

Focus on Marketing Cloud Earlier in this series, we discussed Salesforce’s (CRM) acquisition of Sequence. On February 20, 2017, Salesforce shared that it has been positioned as a leader by Gartner in its February 2017 Magic Quadrant for Digital Marketing Hubs report. Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud CEO and chief analytics officer Bob Stutz said that “we believe Salesforce’s […]

Twitter (TWTR) continues to produce robust revenue growth. Twitter even raised its guidance for 4Q14 revenue as well as its adjusted EBITDA.

IBM’s acquisitions to boost Watson Since its inception, IBM (IBM) has been betting heavily on Watson, its cognitive computing platform, to steer the company toward much-needed growth. As expected, Watson was IBM’s highlight in 2016 and is expected to be in 2017 as well. Considering IBM’s acquisitions to equip Watson in the healthcare space, namely […]

Segment-wise contribution to revenue and margins So far in this series, we’ve discussed Microsoft’s (MSFT) segment-wise performance, Whereas its Productivity and Business Processes and Intelligent Cloud segments reported growth, its MPC (More Personal Computing) segment did not. Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and MPC contributed 24%, ~28%, and 38%, respectively, of the company’s total revenue in fiscal […]

According to the IDC, the IoT (Internet of Things) market is expected to reach $7.1 trillion in sales by 2020—up from $1.9 trillion in 2014.

IBM (IBM) announced in February 2017 that it was teaming up with Visa (V) to enable people to pay for goods and services through virtually any connected device.

In fiscal 1Q17, Microsoft’s gross margin stood at ~61.7%, as compared to ~64.7% in fiscal 1Q16. Intelligent Cloud contributed ~34% to total revenues.

As of February 22, HP has generated investor returns of 56.6% in the trailing-12-month period and 10.4% in the trailing-one-month.

In March 2014, Intel (INTC) announced that it invested $740 million in Cloudera—in return for an 18% stake ownership in the company.

To provide a boost to its slowing economy, China cut its benchmark one-year lending rate for the fifth time in 2015. The PBoC slashed it by 25 basis points to 4.4%, effective October 24, 2015.

Cognizant Technology Solutions reported its 1Q18 results on May 7, and its stock fell more than 5.2% on the day.

In 2016, Salesforce has continued to report double-digit growth and was ranked as the most innovative company by Forbes for the sixth straight year.

Continued sluggishness in computer market  In the previous part, we discussed Symantec’s (SYMC) latest acquisition of LifeLock. PC (personal computer) shipments fell for the eighth consecutive quarter in 3Q16. Gartner said that this was “the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC industry.” Let’s discuss how this acquisition is going to enhance its […]

IBM (IBM) is known for its acquisitions, patents, and technology research. It has been criticized because of its lack of revenue growth for several consecutive quarters.

HP has generated investor returns of 70.5% in the trailing-12-month period and 8.7% in the trailing-one-month period.

Boeing stock fell 10.3% last week—the biggest weekly loss in the last three years. The stock fell 11.4% during the week ending February 12, 2016.

Lately, IBM has seen lot of harsh criticism due to its poor financial results and faltering leadership position. But there are some technological areas where the company still stands tall.

A few months ago, Apple and IBM (IBM) forged a partnership. IBM’s “big data” and analytics capabilities would help Apple analyze the data collected from Apple’s devices.

In August 2016, Apple’s CEO, in a talk with The Washington Post about the company’s cash held overseas, said, “We’re not going to bring back until there’s a fair rate.”

The sequential binding of applications through the use of middleware is known as enterprise application integration (or EAI).

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has introduced several products in the last few months, building a wide array of solutions.

Believed to be the world’s largest cyberattack, WannaCry ransomware infected more than 230,000 computers in almost 150 countries.

Microsoft has extended its partnership with Lenovo, a leading vendor in the PC space, because it generates the majority of its revenue from the PC market.

App Store is one of Apple’s (AAPL) fastest growing businesses. For reporting purposes, Apple combines the iTunes business with App Store under the category iTunes, Software, and Services.

IBM (IBM) announced in February 2017 that H&R Block was deploying Watson to its 70,000 tax professionals with the aim of eliminating human errors in tax filing.

Microsoft (MSFT) completed the acquisition of BlueStripe on June 10, 2015. Technology players are aggressively aiming to expand their presence in the cloud space.

NetApp has stated that it is fully committed to executing its capital allocation programs and to creating value for shareholders.

NetApp CEO George Kurian has stated that the firm will focus on strategic solutions “that represent our pivot to the growth segments of the market.”

IBM’s hardware segment’s contribution toward overall revenues is decreasing. In 2Q14, hardware constituted ~12.5% of IBM’s overall revenues, reduced to 9.6% of IBM’s overall revenues in fiscal 2Q15.

The double-digit growth of open source databases is posing an additional threat to Oracle, which has a revenue share of 48.3% in this space.

AddThis will be a part of Oracle’s Data Cloud and provide extensive market intelligence, which will boost Oracle’s presence in the marketing cloud space.

The divestiture of QuickBooks will enable Intuit to focus on its online, subscription-based services, especially its flagship cloud software QuickBooks Online.

Highbridge Capital Management is an alternative investment management organization. It was founded in 1992. The company has developed a diversified investment platform.

Strategic imperatives ruled International Business Machines’ (IBM) 3Q16 results. Recently, we also discussed IBM’s new interest in blockchain technology.

VMware (VMW) parted with $1.3 billion three years ago to acquire Nicira, a software-defined networking company. Now, VMware is beginning to show that it made the right decision.

Teradata primarily generates revenues from data and analytics and marketing applications. Its core business is struggling, as data warehouses are increasingly moving toward the cloud.

In fiscal 1Q16, Intel’s Data Center Group revenues rose by 9% YoY to $4 billion, making for another quarter of single-digit growth.

The rising cost of manufacturing chips caused a decline in IBM’s (IBM) volume base. It forced the company to divest the business.

Apple takes a 30% cut from developers selling via the App Store. So Apple would have earned about $4.3 billion from the App Store in 2014.

iPhone contributed about 57% of Apple’s revenues in fiscal 2014, up from 55% in fiscal 2013. This could increase when Apple announces its 1Q15 results.

Cloud technology is one area that highly dominated Microsoft’s reports, filings, and presentations in 2015.

IBM has been betting heavily on Watson, its cognitive computing platform, to steer the company toward much-needed growth.

Despite Amazon’s dominance and scale in the cloud space, IBM (IBM), Microsoft, and Google saw a combined 5% increase in market share in 2016 compared to 2015.

According to Dealogic, SAP’s (SAP) acquisition of Concur Technologies ranks among the top ten largest software deals. SAP acquired Concur Technologies for $8.3 billion. SAP paid $129 per share. It represents a 20% premium over Concur Technologies’ closing price on September 17.

Disruptive technologies like social, mobile, analytics, and cloud (or SMAC) are driving change in the IT and technology sector. This increases the need for continuous innovation.