In the quarter to June 30, IBM, the world's biggest computer company, made a profit of $1.83 billion on sales that fell 3.6% to $22.27 billion. The sales decline was expected because of the deal to offload IBM's PC division to Lenovo of China. IBM pocketed $1.1 billion from the Lenovo deal plus $775 million from Microsoft, thanks to the efforts of the US Justice Department, while also taking a $1.7 billion charge to cut about 14,500 jobs, mainly in Europe. But in general, the numbers looked good. The AP coverage concluded as follows:
"Not only has their business bounced back, which was expected, but above and beyond that, they appear to be doing a better job executing, and demand seems to be improving in some areas of their business," said analyst Richard Petersen of Pacific Crest Securities.
The numbers are here.
