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Will IBM's Expanded Capabilities in Microsoft Cloud Aid the Stock?
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International Business Machines Corporation (IBM - Free Report) recently announced that its Apptio portfolio of enterprise agile planning (EAP), IT financial management and cloud FinOps solutions will be available on Microsoft Azure – the cloud computing platform of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT - Free Report) . Also, IBM expanded the global availability of its software portfolio to 14 additional countries on the Azure Marketplace to better serve customers on their digital transformation journeys.
IBM’s EAP software eases the operation silos by helping portfolio managers and finance teams plan, manage budgets and align workforces across various technology priorities. The software integrates seamlessly with Azure DevOps to provide simplified management, increased efficiencies and potential cost savings by allowing clients to use Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments.
IBM Rides on Cloud, AI Traction
IBM is poised to benefit from healthy demand trends for hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI), which drive the Software and Consulting segments. The company’s growth is expected to be aided by analytics, cloud computing and security in the long haul. A combination of a better business mix, improving operating leverage through productivity gains and increased investment in growth opportunities will likely boost profitability.
IBM has inked a partnership with Intel Corporation (INTC - Free Report) to deploy the latter’s Gaudi 3 AI accelerators as a service in IBM Cloud. With this, IBM became the first cloud service provider to deploy Gaudi 3 across hybrid and on-premise environments.
Aimed to offer improved visibility and control over the software stack, simplifying workload and application management, the collaboration intends to help customers cost-effectively scale enterprise AI workloads while prioritizing performance, security and resiliency. The offering, slated to be available by early 2025, is likely to pave the path for more innovations in Generative AI to help unlock its full potential.
IBM’s Watsonx Platform Fueling Higher Demand
IBM’s Watsonx platform is likely to be the core technology platform for its AI capabilities. Watsonx delivers the value of foundational models to the enterprise, enabling them to be more productive. This enterprise-ready AI and data platform comprises three products to help organizations accelerate and scale AI — the watsonx.ai studio for new foundation models, generative AI and machine learning, the watsonx.data fit-for-purpose data store built on an open lake house architecture and the watsonx.governance toolkit to help enable AI workflows to be built with responsibility and transparency.
IBM's Price Performance
Buoyed by strong demand for hybrid cloud and AI, IBM has surged 38.5% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 32.2%, outperforming peers like Microsoft but lagging Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) .
One-Year Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Estimate Revision Trend of IBM
IBM is currently witnessing an uptrend in estimate revisions. Earnings estimates for 2024 have moved up 3.5% to $10.11 over the past year, while the same for 2025 has increased 1.2% to $10.56. The positive estimate revision portrays bullish sentiments about the stock’s growth potential.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
IBM Plagued by Margin Woes
Despite solid hybrid cloud and AI traction, IBM is facing stiff competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Increasing pricing pressure is eroding margins, and profitability has trended down over the years, barring occasional spikes. The company’s ongoing, heavily time-consuming business model transition to the cloud is challenging. Weakness in its traditional business and foreign exchange volatility remain significant concerns. IBM’s third-quarter performance was also dented by a pause in discretionary spending owing to economic uncertainty due to geopolitical turmoil, the U.S. Presidential elections and the evolving landscape of interest rates and inflation levels.
Key Valuation Metric
From a valuation standpoint, IBM appears to be trading at a premium relative to the industry and is trading well above its mean. Going by the price/book ratio, the company shares currently trade at 7.78, higher than 3.42 for the industry and the stock’s mean of 5.85.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
End Note
IBM aims to benefit from the increasing propensity of business enterprises to undertake a cloud-agnostic and interoperable approach to secure multi-cloud management with a diligent focus on hybrid cloud and generative AI solutions. With a surge in traditional cloud-native workloads and associated applications, along with a rise in generative AI deployment and quantum computing, there is a radical expansion in the number of cloud workloads that enterprises are currently managing. This has resulted in heterogeneous, dynamic and complex infrastructure strategies, which has led to a healthy demand trend.
However, with a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), IBM appears to be treading in the middle of the road, and new investors could be better off if they trade with caution. It is also trading at premium valuation metrics and investors could wait for a better entry point to cash in on its long-term fundamentals. Consequently, it might not be prudent to bet on the stock at the moment. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Will IBM's Expanded Capabilities in Microsoft Cloud Aid the Stock?
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM - Free Report) recently announced that its Apptio portfolio of enterprise agile planning (EAP), IT financial management and cloud FinOps solutions will be available on Microsoft Azure – the cloud computing platform of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT - Free Report) . Also, IBM expanded the global availability of its software portfolio to 14 additional countries on the Azure Marketplace to better serve customers on their digital transformation journeys.
IBM’s EAP software eases the operation silos by helping portfolio managers and finance teams plan, manage budgets and align workforces across various technology priorities. The software integrates seamlessly with Azure DevOps to provide simplified management, increased efficiencies and potential cost savings by allowing clients to use Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments.
IBM Rides on Cloud, AI Traction
IBM is poised to benefit from healthy demand trends for hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI), which drive the Software and Consulting segments. The company’s growth is expected to be aided by analytics, cloud computing and security in the long haul. A combination of a better business mix, improving operating leverage through productivity gains and increased investment in growth opportunities will likely boost profitability.
IBM has inked a partnership with Intel Corporation (INTC - Free Report) to deploy the latter’s Gaudi 3 AI accelerators as a service in IBM Cloud. With this, IBM became the first cloud service provider to deploy Gaudi 3 across hybrid and on-premise environments.
Aimed to offer improved visibility and control over the software stack, simplifying workload and application management, the collaboration intends to help customers cost-effectively scale enterprise AI workloads while prioritizing performance, security and resiliency. The offering, slated to be available by early 2025, is likely to pave the path for more innovations in Generative AI to help unlock its full potential.
IBM’s Watsonx Platform Fueling Higher Demand
IBM’s Watsonx platform is likely to be the core technology platform for its AI capabilities. Watsonx delivers the value of foundational models to the enterprise, enabling them to be more productive. This enterprise-ready AI and data platform comprises three products to help organizations accelerate and scale AI — the watsonx.ai studio for new foundation models, generative AI and machine learning, the watsonx.data fit-for-purpose data store built on an open lake house architecture and the watsonx.governance toolkit to help enable AI workflows to be built with responsibility and transparency.
IBM's Price Performance
Buoyed by strong demand for hybrid cloud and AI, IBM has surged 38.5% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 32.2%, outperforming peers like Microsoft but lagging Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN - Free Report) .
One-Year Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Estimate Revision Trend of IBM
IBM is currently witnessing an uptrend in estimate revisions. Earnings estimates for 2024 have moved up 3.5% to $10.11 over the past year, while the same for 2025 has increased 1.2% to $10.56. The positive estimate revision portrays bullish sentiments about the stock’s growth potential.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
IBM Plagued by Margin Woes
Despite solid hybrid cloud and AI traction, IBM is facing stiff competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Increasing pricing pressure is eroding margins, and profitability has trended down over the years, barring occasional spikes. The company’s ongoing, heavily time-consuming business model transition to the cloud is challenging. Weakness in its traditional business and foreign exchange volatility remain significant concerns. IBM’s third-quarter performance was also dented by a pause in discretionary spending owing to economic uncertainty due to geopolitical turmoil, the U.S. Presidential elections and the evolving landscape of interest rates and inflation levels.
Key Valuation Metric
From a valuation standpoint, IBM appears to be trading at a premium relative to the industry and is trading well above its mean. Going by the price/book ratio, the company shares currently trade at 7.78, higher than 3.42 for the industry and the stock’s mean of 5.85.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
End Note
IBM aims to benefit from the increasing propensity of business enterprises to undertake a cloud-agnostic and interoperable approach to secure multi-cloud management with a diligent focus on hybrid cloud and generative AI solutions. With a surge in traditional cloud-native workloads and associated applications, along with a rise in generative AI deployment and quantum computing, there is a radical expansion in the number of cloud workloads that enterprises are currently managing. This has resulted in heterogeneous, dynamic and complex infrastructure strategies, which has led to a healthy demand trend.
However, with a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), IBM appears to be treading in the middle of the road, and new investors could be better off if they trade with caution. It is also trading at premium valuation metrics and investors could wait for a better entry point to cash in on its long-term fundamentals. Consequently, it might not be prudent to bet on the stock at the moment. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.