IBM Just Pre-Announced an Earnings Miss. The Reason Reveals Where AI Money Is Really Flowing.
A rare early warning from one of tech's oldest names doubles as a map of enterprise spending right now.
Overview
IBM (NYSE: IBM) didn't wait for its scheduled earnings date. On Tuesday, a week ahead of its July 22 report, the enterprise software and hardware giant released preliminary second-quarter results in a letter to investors from CEO Arvind Krishna. The numbers were disappointing. Revenue totaled $17.2 billion, up just 1% year over year and short of the company's own expectations.
Investors didn't take it well. Shares fell about 24% on Tuesday, one of the worst single-day drops in the company's history, and slid further on Wednesday to a 52-week low. IBM's market capitalization now sits below $200 billion.
Details
But the most interesting part of the pre-announcement isn't the miss itself. It's Krishna's explanation of what happened in the last few weeks of June, because it says a lot about where technology budgets are actually going in the AI (artificial intelligence) buildout.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.