IBM’s Ginni Rometty Reveals Watson’s Future

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty (photo, Fortune Magazine)

In this interview from Fortune Magazine, IBM’s Ginni Rometty reveals what’s next for the company’s talking supercomputer Watson, including its future service.

In addition, she discusses what it means for IBM to be an innovation company at a scale of more than 400,000 employees, the five key pieces of continuous transformation, and more.

Fortune senior writer Jessi Hempel interviewed the IBM CEO last week at the National Venture Capital Association’s 40th anniversary conference, VentureScape.

Read the interview.

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- Posted by Regan Kelly   This post is part of The Greater IBM Connection’s May 2013 theme of emerging trends.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty Touts Watson, New ‘Golden Era of Technology’

Watson, IBM’s Jeopardy!-winning supercomputer, is about to become an advisor to research-oriented industries, says IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty.

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty

Speaking in San Francisco this week to the annual meeting of the National Venture Capital Association, she said that Watson is part of a third era of technology, in which computers learn.

In fact, given today’s confluence of cloud, mobile, social and big data technologies, future historians may regard this era as “a golden era of technology,” she said, because the vast amount of information being generated will change how individuals make decisions and how companies work. Read what else she had to say, in this article by Deborah Gage at The Wall Street Journal.

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What did you think of this article and what’s next for Watson? Let us know in the Leave a Reply field below.

IBM 2013 Annual Meeting of Stockholders

IBM’s 2013 Annual Meeting of Stockholders was held on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 in the Von Braun Center, 700 Monroe Street, Huntsville, Alabama.

• View the webcast of the report on the company
• Read the report on the company
• Download IBM Proxy Statement 2013 (887kB)
• Final stockholder voting results (21KB)

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- Posted by Regan Kelly

1st Quarter 2013 Earnings: How Did IBM Do?

- from IBM.com

IBM today announced first-quarter 2013 diluted earnings of $2.70 per share, a year-to-year increase of 3 percent.  Operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings were $3.00 per share, compared with operating diluted earnings of $2.78 per share in the first quarter of 2012, an increase of 8 percent.

First-quarter net income was $3.0 billion, down 1 percent year-to-year. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $3.4 billion compared with $3.3 billion in the first quarter of 2012, an increase of 3 percent.

Total revenues for the first quarter of 2013 of $23.4 billion were down 5 percent (down 3 percent, adjusting for currency) from the first quarter of 2012.

“In the first quarter, we grew operating net income, earnings per share and expanded operating margins but we did not achieve all of our goals in the period. Despite a solid start and good client demand we did not close a number of software and mainframe transactions that have moved into the second quarter.  The services business performed as expected with strong profit growth and significant new business in the quarter,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.

Virginia Rometty, IBM President & CEO

“Looking ahead, in addition to closing those transactions, we expect to benefit from investments we are making in our growth initiatives and from the actions we are taking to improve under-performing parts of the business.  We remain confident in this model of continuous transformation and in our ability to deliver our full-year 2013 operating earnings per share expectation of at least $16.70.”

Read more in the official press release.

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- Posted by Regan Kelly

4th Quarter 2012 Earnings: How Did IBM Do?

- from IBM.com

IBM has announced its fourth-quarter 2012 diluted earnings of $5.13 per share, compared with diluted earnings of $4.62 per share in the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 11 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) diluted earnings were $5.39 per share, compared with operating diluted earnings of $4.71 per share in the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 14 percent.

Fourth-quarter net income was $5.8 billion compared with $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 6 percent. Operating (non-GAAP) net income was $6.1 billion compared with $5.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 10 percent.

Virginia Rometty

Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2012 of $29.3 billion decreased 1 percent (flat adjusting for currency) from the fourth quarter of 2011. Without the impact of the divested Retail Store Solutions (RSS) business, revenue increased 1 percent, adjusting for currency.

“We achieved record profit, earnings per share and free cash flow in 2012. Our performance in the fourth quarter and for the full year was driven by our strategic growth initiatives — growth markets, analytics, cloud computing, Smarter Planet solutions — which support our continued shift to higher-value businesses,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.

“Looking ahead, we continue to invest to deliver innovations for the enterprise in key areas such as big data, mobile solutions, social business and security, while expanding into new markets and reaching new clients. We are well on track toward our long-term roadmap for operating EPS of at least $20 in 2015.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Tune in anytime to watch the replay of Mark Loughridge, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Finance and Enterprise Transformation, discussing IBM’s fourth quarter earnings.

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IBM CEO Virginia Rometty #15 of 100 Women Who Run The World (Forbes)

Virginia Rometty, IBM President & CEO (Photo Credit: Forbes)

IBM President and CEO, Virginia Rometty, ranks #15 on Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Women in the World, 2012.  For nine years,Forbes has ranked the 100 most powerful women in the world.  These include heads of state, CEOs, female entrepreneurs, celebrity role models, philanthropists, and news-makers around the globe.  The 2012 list features eight heads of state, 25 CEOs who control $984 billion in revenues, and 10 celebrities who are also noted philanthropists.  You might recognize some of the names on this list, such as Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga, Queen Elizabeth II, Jennifer Lopez, Ellen Degeneres, to name a few.  Some you may not recognize but are just as important to this list such as Margaret Chan (Director-General World Health Organization), Sonia Ghandi (President Indian National Congress, India), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil President).  It’s Forbes annual snapshot of the women who are impacting the world the most.

Read the full story below:

• (Forbes, 2012) – The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women 2012

You may want to also read the earlier post about Ginni sharing her leadership philosophy at the Most Powerful Women Summit here if you missed it.

–Posted by Julie Yamamoto, Program Manager, The Greater IBM Connection

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The January 2013 theme for The Greater IBM Connection is ”leadership”, and The Greater IBM Connection will be sharing various tips, tools, and resources on this topic.

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty Shares Her Leadership Philosophy

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty at Fortune’s Most Powerful Woman Summit, October 2012 (Photo Credit: Business Insider)

IBM CEO Virginia Rometty shared her leadership philosophy at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in October 2012.  In a world that is changing so quickly and a workforce that is very bright, the idea of strategic belief becomes more important than strategic planning.  She describes the concept like this:

“…in a nutshell, you know, clients would often say to me, ‘What’s your strategy?’  And I would say, ‘Ask me what I believe first, that’s a way more enduring answer.’ And in the world you and I live in now where everything’s changing so quickly, you can’t predict everything, and — and this is probably the most important “and” — and most of us have workforces that are very bright, very intelligent, that want to be engaged in a broad way. This idea of a strategic belief is saying that you can agree amongst the firm for the future, on some really big arcs of change, I would call them.”

Read the full story and watch the interview below:

(Business Insider, 2012) – Fortune’s Most Powerful Woman Shares Her Leadership Philosophy

(Video Credit:  Fortune Magazine YouTube Video Channel)

–Posted by Julie Yamamoto, Program Manager, The Greater IBM Connection

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The January 2013 theme for The Greater IBM Connection is ”leadership”, and The Greater IBM Connection will be sharing various tips, tools, and resources on this topic.

Women in IT: How Deep is the Bench?

IBM’s CEO Ginni Rometty leaves the White House following a meeting of CEOs with President Obama.

Although superstar women today are leading IT at some of the Fortune 500 biggest global corporations – including superstar Ginni Rometty at IBM – the path to the top isn’t at all clear for the next generation.

In this essay, Computerworld.com’s Tracy Mayor examines the progress that’s been made and answers the question: Are we there yet? Her insights, here.

 

 

CEOs, Including IBM’s Ginni Rometty, Optimistic after Meeting with President Obama

12 company leaders, including CEO and chairman of the board of IBM Virginia Rometty, met Wednesday with President Obama at the White House to discuss a range of topics.

How do they think think the meeting went? Read the story.

photo, Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Chevron CEO John Watson (left) and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty depart after a Wednesday meeting with President Barack Obama and other business leaders to discuss the economy at the White House.

(Story by Jennifer Liberto, http://www.kcci.com.)

3 Keys To Compete In Today’s Economy, According to Sam Palmisano

Sam Palmisano, pictured in Hanover, Germany last February

Speaking at The Economist’s Buttonwood Gathering in New York last month, former IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano shared what he sees as the three keys for anyone – cities, countries or companies – to compete in today’s integrated global economy. With interconnectivity growing, you’ve got to distinguish yourself to find growth, he said.

“The developing world has reached the end of the easy path to rising GDP…growth markets have plucked the low-hanging fruit of global integration Act I,” said Palmisano, and “….the developed world finds itself needing to address huge structural overhangs with urgency. Postponement is not a serious option.”

So how can you compete? For Palmisano, it comes down to three key points.

Read the article here.