| The IBM PC (model 5150) was launched in August 1981 with a maximum memory of 256kB |
International Business Machines, better known as IBM, ‘celebrated’ an unpleasant anniversary on Tuesday. As the company reported, the first quarter of 2017 marked the 20th consecutive quarter of declining revenue for one of the oldest tech companies in the world.
Founded in 1911 and renamed International Business Machines in 1924, the Armonk, New York- based company is currently reinventing itself as it shifts away from its legacy hardware and software businesses towards more promising fields such as cloud computing, security software, data analytics and artificial intelligence.
These “Strategic Imperatives” as IBM calls those new businesses accounted for $7.8 billion of IBM’s $18.2 billion in revenue in the first quarter, with the company’s cloud business contributing $3.5 billion. The cloud segment and the strategic imperatives segment (including cloud) have seen significant positive growth for the past few quarters. However, that hasn’t been enough to offset the decline of IBM’s legacy business.
IBM’s shareholders were clearly disappointed by the company’s repeated failure to return to growth. IBM shares were down 5 percent in early trading on Wednesday.