IBM Among Cloud Top 500

IBM Strengths, Domain Expertise, and Key Differentiators

IBM sees the hybrid cloud and AI as its clear path to growth. Companies have an urgent need to move mission-critical work to the cloud due to the pandemic and the shift to work from home. IBM aims to deliver for clients through the Red Hat OpenShift cloud platform and add-on Cloud Paks. IBM’s industry-leading security makes its cloud safe and compliant for regulated industries. IBM’s services team has the expertise to help clients migrate to the cloud and leverage apps to maximize their success.

IBM's research and development (R&D) operations differentiate the company from its competitors. IBM annually invests 7 to 8 percent of total revenue for R&D, focusing on high-growth, high-value opportunities. IBM Research works with clients and the company's business units through global labs on near-term and mid-term innovations. It delivers many new technologies to IBM's portfolio every year and helps clients address their most difficult challenges. IBM Research scientists are conducting pioneering work in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, blockchain, security, cloud, nanotechnology, silicon and post-silicon computing architectures and more—applying these technologies across industries including healthcare, IoT, education and financial services.

In 2017, for the 25th consecutive year, IBM was awarded more U.S. patents than any other company. IBM's 9,043 patents awarded in 2017 represent a diverse range of inventions in artificial intelligence, cloud, cybersecurity and other strategic growth areas for the company. The company continues to actively seek IP protection for its innovations while increasing emphasis on other initiatives designed to leverage its IP leadership.

Some of IBM's technological breakthroughs are used exclusively in IBM products, while others are licensed and may be used in IBM products and/or the products of the licensee. As part of its business model, the company licenses certain of its intellectual property, which is high-value technology, but may be in more mature markets. The licensee drives the future development of the IP and ultimately expand customer base. This would generate IP income for the company both upon licensing, and with any ongoing royalty arrangements between it and the licensee.

IBM Recent Developments

In June 2021, Schlumberger and IBM announced the industry’s first commercial hybrid cloud Enterprise Data Management Solution for the OSDU Data Platform. The hybrid cloud offering is designed to expand access to customers globally—including those in locations where data residency requirements and local regulations may affect the use of global public cloud—and is engineered to reduce time for analysis and accelerate decision-making, with all workflow data available in one place. In October, IBM launched the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite, which leverages AI to help organizations prepare for and respond to weather and climate risks, assess their own impact on the planet, and reduce the complexity of regulatory compliance.

In May 2019, IBM introduced IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA, a new approach designed to provide a smarter and faster way to digital transformations. Businesses across industries can look to accelerate the process of migrating existing SAP systems to SAP S/4HANA, enabling them to speed up the reinvention of core business processes and integration of new technology.

IBM Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Activities

In June 2021, IBM closed its acquisition of Turbonomic, Inc., an Application Resource Management (ARM) and Network Performance Management (NPM) software provider. In July, IBM announced an agreement to acquire Bluetab Solutions Group, S.L. to extend its portfolio of data and hybrid cloud consulting services. IBM announced plans to acquire BoxBoat Technologies, a premier DevOps consultancy and enterprise Kubernetes certified service provider. In October, IBM announced plans to acquire the Adobe Workfront consulting unit, which specializes in work management consulting for enterprise clients. In November, IBM announced plans to acquire cybersecurity solutions company ReaQta.

In 2019 IBM divested itself from a number of enterprise applications products including selling IBM Watson Marketing, now renamed Acoutstic, to private equity firm Centerbridge Partners. That was followed by its sale of IBM collaboration, commerce, digital experience, AppScan, & BigFix solutions to HCL, an India-based systems integrator that is bulking up its software assets.

In October 2018, IBM acquired software company Red Hat for $34 billion, including debt, as it seeks to diversify its technology hardware and consulting business into higher-margin products and services. The transaction is by far IBM’s biggest acquisition. It underscores IBM's desire to expand its subscription-based software offerings especially for security, as it faces stiffening competition in the professional services and BPO markets along with waning demand for mainframe servers due to Cloud migration.

IBM Customers in ARTW Customer Database

Leveraging a rigorous data-centric research methodology, APPS RUN THE WORLD asks the simple question: Who’s buying IBM applications and why? And we provide the answers – supported by decades of research – to our clients around the world. Our Customer database has over 100 data fields that detail company usage of IBM and other enterprise apps by function, customer size, industry, location, implementation status, partner involvement, Line of Business Key Stakeholders and IT decision makers contact details. List of Verified IBM SPSS, IBM Maximo Asset Performance Management, IBM Procurement, Kenexa, Cognos, IBM Watson, IBM Planning Analytics, IBM Clinical Development, IBM TRIRIGA Building Insights customers.

IBM Key Enterprise and Cloud Applications

IBM SPSS, IBM Maximo Asset Performance Management, IBM Procurement, Kenexa, Cognos, IBM Watson, IBM Planning Analytics, IBM Clinical Development, IBM TRIRIGA Building Insights

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IBM Revenue Breakdown By Type, $M:

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IBM Direct vs Indirect sales

IBM Customers - Breakdown by Geo, Size, Vertical and Product

List of Verified IBM Customers

No. of IBM Customers: 50000

No. of IBM Enterprise Applications Customers: 50000

No. of IBM Cloud Customers: x

No. of IBM Cloud Subscribers: x

IBM has more than 50,000 customers around the world.

IBM Watson is helping produce better decision-making and business outcomes through more than 20,000 client engagements, across 20 industries to date.

IBM Blockchain now powers more than 500 client projects, with more than 85 active networks transforming supply chains, global shipping and cross-border finance.

IBM Security, the world’s largest cybersecurity enterprise, has 8,000 subject matter experts serving more than 17,000 clients in more than 130 countries.

Among IBM biggest customers are, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Dell, Oracle, Intel, Google, VMWare, Toshiba and Nortel.

IBM Market Opportunities, M&A and Geo Expansions

In April 2021, IBM acquired myInvenio, a process mining software company based in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The acquisition will provide organizations with data-driven software that should help them identify the most impactful business processes to automate using AI – including sales, procurement, production and accounting. It also further advances IBM's hybrid cloud and AI strategy, providing customers with a comprehensive suite of AI-powered automation capabilities for business automation. With the acquisition of myInvenio, IBM will help companies overcome the challenge of streamlining business processes that are cumbersome or create bottlenecks, slowing down innovation and increasing costs.

The myInvenio acquision underscores IBM's continued investment in providing organizations with a one-stop shop of AI-powered automation capabilities for business automation, including process mining, robotic process automation (RPA) through the recent acquisition of WDG Automation, document processing, workflow, and decisions. All of these capabilities are tightly integrated with IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation and powered by Red Hat OpenShift to run anywhere and help customers automate their entire enterprise. IBM's acquisition of myInvenio builds on its OEM agreement with the company. Upon close of the acquisition, IBM has plans to integrate myInvenio's capabilities into its Automation portfolio, including IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation, IBM's hybrid cloud software for using AI to transform business processes and help enable people to be more productive.

IBM Risks and Challenges

IBM responded to recent years’ major disruptions of global business by focusing on workforce resiliency. In January 2020, they mobilized IBM’s Corporate Crisis Management Team (CCMT) at the earliest signs of a potential pandemic, relying on IBM’s established response plans for Ebola and SARS. In early March, they transitioned 95 percent of IBM’s global workforce to remote work in a matter of days, leveraging the IBM hybrid cloud. Throughout 2020, they provided key tools, wellness and mental health guidance, and management support to help employees stay safe and sane. As they prepare for a safe post-COVID workplace, they are committed to adjusting their people management approach to the new normal. IBM will apply design thinking to how employees use hybrid office space in purpose-driven ways. They must keep current with skills retraining and recruiting as accelerated digital transformation drives a tighter tech skills job market.

IBM and HCL announced a definitive agreement under which HCL has acquired select IBM Appscan , BigFix , Unica (on-premise), Commerce (on-premise), Portal (on-premise), Notes & Domino , and Sametime & Connections solutions. IBM and HCL completed the transaction on June 30, 2019. The downturn in Economic Environment and Client Spending Budgets could impact the Company's Business: If overall demand for IBM's products and solutions decreases, whether due to general economic conditions or a shift in client buying patterns, the company's revenue and profit could be impacted. Additionally, what IBM has to be worry about is the ability of agile players quickly bundling and unbundling Cloud-based data, insight and services by carefully segmenting their customers. The challenge for IBM is to keep up with the competition by meeting customer requirements at different price points, which could render its services organization with its high overhead less effective in delivering bare-bones or sometimes freemium solutions.

IBM Ecosystem, Partners, Resellers and SI

To accelerate consumption of their hybrid cloud platform, IBM has elevated the role of partners and also rapidly expanded their ecosystem by adding hundreds of new partnerships. In August 2021, IBM and Black & Veatch announced a collaboration to jointly market Asset Performance Management (APM) solutions, including remote monitoring technologies that combine near real-time data analytics with AI to help customers keep equipment and assets running at peak performance. In September, several banks across Africa selected hybrid cloud and AI capabilities from IBM. IBM and Raytheon announced a strategic collaboration to jointly develop advanced AI, cryptography, and quantum solutions for aerospace, defense, and intelligence.

In June 2019, IBM and Cloudera partnered to develop joint go-to-market programs designed to bring advanced data and AI solutions to more organizations across the expansive Apache Hadoop ecosystem. The agreement builds on the long-standing relationship between IBM and Hortonworks, which merged with Cloudera in January 2019 and created integrated solutions for data science and data management. The new agreement builds on these integrated solutions and extends them to include the Cloudera platform. As part of the partnership, IBM will resell the Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub and Cloudera DataFlow. In addition, Cloudera will begin to resell IBM's Watson Studio and BigSQL.

Furthermore, in 2019, IBM and AT&T unveiled a multi-year strategic alliance. Under the agreement AT&T Communications will use IBM's expertise to modernize AT&T Business Solutions' internal software applications, enabling migrations to the IBM Cloud. In addition, IBM will provide infrastructure to support AT&T Business's applications. AT&T Business will utilize Red Hat's open-source platform to manage workloads and applications. The improvements will allow AT&T Business to better serve enterprise customers.

IBM has a global presence, operating in more than 175 countries with a broad-based geographic distribution of revenue. The company's Global Markets organization manages IBM's global footprint, working closely with dedicated country-based operating units to serve clients locally. These country teams have client relationship managers who lead integrated teams of consultants, solution specialists and delivery professionals to enable clients' growth and innovation. IBM is expected to expand its global SaaS business partner community now that it’s scaling out its data center operations through the recent acquisition of SoftLayer, which already serves 21,000 customers with an infrastructure made up of 100,000 servers that support 22 million domains.

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Research Methodology

Data used in research reports are derived from publicly available documents, continuous surveys of applications vendors, customers, resellers, Independent Software Vendors, systems integrators and other verifiable sources.

Vendor shares and market forecast results are based on a combination of existing databases as well as demand side and supply side research conducted throughout the year with validation from vendors, customers, channel partners and documentations such as earnings releases and 10Q and 10K filings, vertical industry studies, regional and country-level statistics from public and private institutions(i.e. colleges, universities, government agencies and trade associations).

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