IBM is a bright spark amid gloomy results

IBM is a bright spark amid gloomy resultsA positive first quarter for the company sees overall revenue rising 11 per cent year on year.
IBM bucked the recent trend for disappointing financial results by posting better than expected profit and revenue figures for the first quarter of 2008.
The declining value of the US dollar against the euro helped boost the value of sales in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, while IBM’s recently announced $12bn (£6.1bn) share buy-back scheme also contributed to per-share earnings that exceeded
analyst expectations.
The firm’s net income was up 26 per cent to $2.32bn (£1.2bn) from $1.84bn (£930m) in the first quarter of 2007, with total revenue rising 11 per cent to $24.5bn (£12.4bn) in the same period.
The services and software segments showed particularly strong growth, which IBM chairman and chief executive Sam Palmisano saw as testament to his strategy of weaning the company off its dependence on hardware sales.
With currency adjustments, global technology services revenue, including datacentre management, grew nine per cent to $9.7bn (£4.9bn). Software sales, including middleware and operating systems, were up six per cent to $4.8bn (£2.4bn).
“Our performance is a tribute to the way we have repositioned our company over the past several years. IBM is a different company today. We feel good about the rest of the year,” said Palmisano in a statement.
The negatives for IBM came from the systems and technology (servers) segment, which saw revenue dip seven per cent to $4.2bn (£2.1bn), and global financing, which saw revenue fall three per cent to $633m (£320m).