IBM results Q3/08

There is a lot of interesting stuff in the 3Q 2008 Earnings Presentation of IBM (you find the pdf here). Let´s have a look at page 12: Legacy System i is 82% down, i assume the 7% up for converged System p comes from customers buying pSeries instead of iSeries. xSeries is down 18% and storage 3%. IBM Microelectronics is down 27% year to year. In total the System&Technology business lost 10% (at constant currency it´s even 11%). So yould easily say: Software and Services rescued IBM in the last quarter. But not everything is looking bright there. The signings for Global Services for short-term is up, but the signings for long term deals decreased 19% for strategic outsourcing, 17% down for Global Technology Service and 16% down for Global business services. By the way: SMB is mentioned often as the big strength of IBM. They make 4,7 billion $ dollars out of this segement. But you have to take into consideration, that IBM has a strong retail equipment department (point-of-sales terminals for example).