IBM陷入双重困境

    收入下降很大一部分来自于对华硬件销售，在美国国家安全局(NSA)爆发间谍丑闻后，中国开始限制从美国公司购买硬件产品。上一季度，IBM来自中国的收入下降了23%。上个月，罗睿兰对中国进行了为期3天的访问，据报道称是为了重建近30年的商业信任。

    罗睿兰迅速地压缩了疲弱的硬件业务。1月末，就在IBM表示硬件业务拖累整体收入后不久，这家公司宣布将低端服务器业务以23亿美元出售给联想，较去年春季提到的40亿美元价格有很大折扣。

    IBM还将从43.1万个职位中裁员1.3万人，这是它10亿美元重组计划的一部分，旨在帮助公司实现到2015年每股收益20美元的目标。3月初，有报道称IBM的硬件业务职位将缩减达1/4，这还不包括它把低端服务器业务出售给联想之后受到影响的那7,500人。

    就在IBM努力精简硬件业务的同时，罗睿兰正在鼓吹有望带来未来增长的一些新计划：云、大数据、移动应用和其Watson 人工智能系统。它的智慧地球（Smarter Planet）计划结合了云技术与分析，去年增长了20%。基于云技术的服务收入大幅增长了69%。而且，3月初，罗睿兰鼓励开发者开发基于Watson的应用。

    推进新领域寻求增长让人想起近10年前IBM开辟个人电脑之外的业务、深耕软件和IT服务领域（2005年，IBM个人电脑子公司卖给了联想）。此次的不同之处是，罗睿兰试图开拓的有些领域（比如分析）符合IBM的强项，但其他领域（比如云计算）却存在以低成本模式蚕食公司核心IT和软件业务的风险。

    鉴于所有这些动向，如果IBM不能实现到2015年每股收益20美元的目标，也是可以理解的。更有力的一个手段是回购。过去20年中，这家公司已通过回购将流通股数量从23亿股减少到了10亿股。去年末，这家公司新增回购资金150亿美元，未来必能通过降低（流通股数）分母推高每股收益。

    越来越多的人表示，需要关注的是每股收益数据中的分子，尤其是在收入下降的情况下。IBM手头的110亿美元现金可以有更精明的用处，购买前景良好的小型数据、云或人工智能公司。一位知名的卖空人士称，IBM大举回购可能是走弱的一个迹象。

    在企业信息技术这样竞争激烈的行业，一家公司要保持领先地位，裁员、回购和出售薄弱业务都是必要的举措。但这些举措也只能帮到这么多。如果公司身处科技行业，而投资者看不到增长，他们将剔除股价中的成长估值。每股收益对于投资者确实很重要，但还比不上股价。（财富中文网）

    A good portion of revenue declines came in hardware sales to China, which has curtailed purchases from U.S. companies in the wake of the NSA spying scandal. IBM's revenue from China declined 23% last quarter. Rometty paid a three-day visit to China last month, reportedly to restore trust in a business relationship that stretches back three decades.

    Rometty is also wasting no time cutting back on the weak hardware business. In late January, shortly after IBM said hardware weighed down overall sales, the company announced a sale of its low-end server business to Lenovo for $2.3 billion, a discount to the $4 billion price cited last spring.

    IBM is also cutting as many as 13,000 of its 431,000 jobs as part of a $1 billion restructuringplan aimed at helping the company meet its goal of $20 EPS by 2015. Late last week, reports emerged that IBM was cutting up to a quarter of its hardware jobs, beyond the 7,500 workers affected by the sale of its low-end servers group to Lenovo.

    While IBM is trimming back its hardware division, Rometty has been trumpeting its initiatives that could lead to future growth: cloud, big data, mobile apps, and its Watson AI system. The company's Smarter Planet initiative, combining cloud technology and analytics, rose 20% last year. Revenue from cloud-based services rose 69%. And last week Rometty encouraged developers to create apps powered by Watson.

    The push into new areas of growth is reminiscent of the push IBM made nearly a decade ago, away from PCs -- selling that division to Lenovo in 2005 -- and further into software and IT services. The difference this time is that while some of the areas Rometty is pushing into, like analytics, suit IBM's strengths, others like cloud computing risk cannibalizing its core IT and software businesses with lower-cost models.

    Given all these moving pieces, it would be understandable if IBM didn't meet its $20 EPS target by 2015. One of the more powerful levers it has is buybacks, which have reduced its shares outstanding to 1 billion from 2.3 billion over the past 20 years. The $15 billion the company added to its buyback arsenal late last year will surely help prop up the earnings-per-share figure by shrinking the denominator.

    Increasingly, some are suggesting that it's the numerator in the EPS figure that needs attention, especially as long as revenue is declining. The company has $11 billion in cash on hand that could be better directed at shrewd purchases of small but promising big data, cloud, and AI companies. One prominent short-seller is suggesting IBM's heavy buybacks could be a sign of weakness.

    Layoffs, buybacks, and selling off weak divisions are necessary moves for a company trying to stay ahead in a competitive arena like enterprise IT. But they only take you so far. If you're in tech and investors aren't seeing growth, they'll take it out of the stock price. As important as EPS is to investors, it's not as important as the simple price that the market is paying for a stock.