Following IBM’s 2013 earnings miss last week, IBM sold the x86 server line to Lenovo. Basically the servers we see are mostly Power servers as opposed to IBM boxes.
Why sell x86 line? X86 is far from “dead.” It’s an inexpensive solution for service providers like Amazon. This decision is similar to IBM getting out of the desktop and laptop arena.
IBM’s moved on to IBM PureSystems – as they say ‘Pure and Simple’. What is “Pure”? Optimized, integrated, scalable, flexible, is good for big data and unstructured data; and has the ability to integrate with cloud or become a private cloud.
While IBM’s 4Q 2013 reported revenue of $27.7 billion is a 5% year-over-year decline, IBM earnings are touted as a “big opportunity.” The continued decline in hardware business, with increase insoftware and cloud initiatives has been an interesting area of discussion as a key long-term holding opportunity for investors.