It's that time again, folks! Submit your answers in now! As always, I'll start: miss [Translation: any meets or beats will due to financial engineering or some surprise one-time deal, like an IP licensing agreement, or a tax lawsuit victory, etc.]
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Revenues down, profit (non-GAAP) up. Same story every quarter for years now.
Probably a good time to get out the old b—s— bingo card then ...
AI . | . Hybrid Cloud . | Red Hat
Transformation . | . Blockchain . | Growth
Watson | . Kubernetes . | IoT
To slightly miss, meet or beat ... does it matter? From a revenue perspective, almost all of its current revenue is coming from existing Customers. The very Customers now using IBM's Cloud capabilities to replace their current on-premise, IBM Services supported environments. Can you say AT&T! Again, I ask you what brand new Customers have they corralled quarter-to-quarter over the past 7-8 years? Not many. Understand, any potential IBM Prospect will, at best, give them a cautionary look. Would you want to invest in a body of IBM technology with the publicized turmoil and changes that have occurred these past 7-8 years? Can you say IBM Watson! The only way forward I'm afraid is to sell/cut to some "final level" and then move forward immediately to show stability, organic growth, and renewed Customer support. Buying Red Hat, by itself, doesn't do that.
I would say a slight beat as that’s how the CFO has managed Wall Street for the past 5-10 years. They will use the AT&T deal as evidence that Redhat was worth the 34 billion “see 15 days in, and we already have a billion dollar sale”. There will be very little talk of “legacy” IBM and it’s continuing fading away. Keep your eye on the services margins, as that’s where IBM has to restructure to win
Whatever the numbers are they will just yell "RED HAT" and that's the excuse for the rest of the year
I'll put money on a slight beat
The fact IBM announced a big deal with AT&T tells u bad news is coming. More smoke and mirrors from IBM. Geez. When does this end.