Thanks to increasing demand for computer systems and software, International Business Machines Corp., (IBM) is reporting a 9 percent uptick in net income at $5.3 billion for its fourth-quarter. That’s compared to $4.8 billion in the same period a year earlier. Big Blue is also reporting a 7 percent increase to $29 billion in revenue for the October to December quarter.

"We completed an outstanding year, with record profit and free cash flow, and exceeded the high end of our 2010 earnings per share roadmap objective," said Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer, in a statement. "We also capped a decade in which our shift to high-value businesses, our global integration of IBM, our investment in research and development of almost $60 billion and our acquisition of 116 companies have helped us to nearly triple our EPS and return more than $100 billion to shareholders.”

Looking to the future, Palmisano says that IBM plans to “continue to focus on our long-term strategic initiatives -- growth markets, Smarter Planet Solutions, cloud and business analytics -- as we drive to achieve our new roadmap target of operating earnings per share of at least $20 in 2015."

Despite diminishing revenues in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia is proving to be a top performer for IBM as revenues stemming from the region increased 14 percent to $6.6 billion.

IBM has been working hard to reinvent itself from being a “boxes and wires” computer manufacturer to a bleeding-edge software company. TechZone360.com’s senior contributing editor Brendan B. In a recent interview, IBM’s Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM Collaboration Solutions, shares how the firm is using social channel/social media and social CRM to stay ahead of the curve and connected with its customers.

Said Heintzman: “You will see social frameworks emerge from companies like IBM. You can already see those capabilities mix with portal, content management, web analytics and e-Marketing in the IBM Customer Experience Suite. You will see this social framework being leveraged inside the enterprise both as part of the collaboration infrastructure such as IBM Lotus Connections as well as embedded inside line of business applications. The next great productivity wave is about social business and it is going to change our relationships with our fellow employees, with our partners, and with our customers.”

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