Blue skies for Big Blue
November 15, 2001: 10:44 a.m. ET
That IBM should be something other than strictly a tech concern is a good thing in times like these.
Adam Lashinsky
money.cnn.com
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - There, they've all but admitted it: IBM says it isn't primarily a technology company anymore. Like so much in the investment world, this is a matter of semantics: If it walks like a tech stock and talks like a tech stock, etc. But hold the outrage. That IBM should be something other than strictly a tech concern is a good thing in times like these.
The suggestion that IBM (IBM: up $0.40 to $114.75, Research, Estimates) isn't all about technology comes from Sam Palmisano, the company's president and chief operating officer and heir apparent to CEO Lou Gerstner. In an address to analysts and investors in New York Wednesday evening, Palmisano bragged that "technology" (semiconductors and hard disk drives) accounts for just 8 percent of IBM's revenues, compared with 82 percent for "infrastructure" (including outsourcing, software, servers, storage systems and PCs) and 10 percent for "business transformation," a murky category referring to IBM's high-end consulting operations. |
