[ It is IBM policy not to break down revenues in the detail
that would be necessary to determine how much, if any, Linux may
have contributed to their bottom line this quarter; we can only
speculate (and hope) that IBM’s Linux support is beginning to show
some bottom-line results – LT ed. ]
“Big Blue (IBM: news, msgs), a technology industry juggernaut
that’s recently struggled with sputtering sales in several of its
key business lines, bucked the trend of disappointing earnings set
by industry rival Hewlett-Packard and others. In light of IBM’s
sub-par third quarter, the company’s numbers took analysts by
surprise.”
“…IBM met its sales goals. The company came through with
revenue of $25.6 billion, up 6 percent from the year-ago quarter.
Analysts from Goldman Sachs and other research firms expected IBM’s
revenue to increase by as little as 3 percent.”
“Hardware sales were the big surprise — the area where IBM
struggled in 2000. The company reported better-than-expected
growth in Unix servers — a key competitive market. Personal
computer sales were stronger than anticipated, with growth of about
15 percent. Also the company’s profit-rich mainframe computer
business, which drives services and software sales, increased
revenue by about 30 percent, analysts said.”