How does IBM do it? How do they have such nice and smooth earnings? Every company in the world is SLASHING their spending on everything, yet IBM is able to beat earnings and raise their guidance for the year. WOW! This is simply unbelievable. The SEC needs to look into IBM's reporting. All this manipulation of earnings and smoothing needs to stop. It's a fine line between this type of behaviour and outright fraud. (btw, I am not long or short the stock, just sick of seeing all this crap)
I call Shenanigans on AAPL's earnings as well. So you are telling me that right now people couldnt get enough of their $1500+ laptops. OK, i dont really believe that one.
Shut your hole. IBM strong-arms their customers into pricey "consulting" contracts with their hardware and software. Always have and always will. Sell someone a 10 million USD mainframe then tack on 40 Million worth of "consulting".
Same way they've done it since the Gerstner years - creative accounting. Look for another large acquisition soon into which they can shovel all kinds of annoying financial facts. Nothing IBM says is believable and it will end badly.