EVR-ISI Software: Daily Cloud Bytes (IBM’s Mainframe Miss, CRM Checks & More)

Research evidence excerpt

EVR-ISI Software: Daily Cloud Bytes (IBM’s Mainframe Miss, CRM Checks & More)

Technology | Software

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July 14, 2026

Kirk Materne, CFA EVR-ISI Software: Daily Cloud Bytes (IBM’s

212 497 0873 Mainframe Miss, CRM Checks & More) kirk.materne@evercoreisi.com

Peter Levine EVR-ISI Software Daily Nugget: While the IBM miss will likely weigh

212 497 0833 on software today, it should be noted that this was, as far as we can

peter.levine@evercoreisi.com tell, a miss that was largely based on a shortfall related to the

Peter Burkly mainframe business. Not IBM’s Red Hat or cloud infra businesses. The

212 497 0831 distinction is unlikely to matter this morning, but we think the direct bank

peter.burkly@evercoreisi.com shot from the miss to the ‘AI is eating software’ narrative is convenient

Vinod Srinivasaraghavan, CFA but a bit of a stretch. As discussed in our CRM note last night and our

646-551-8831 NOW survey, we believe that the macro backdrop for software remains

Vinod.Srinivas@evercoreisi.com relatively stable though the space remains ‘guilty until proven durable’.

Bill McNamara Turning to our CRM note released last night, we believe the key debate

212 446 5626

into F2Q is whether Salesforce can show its path to 2H revenue bill.mcnamara@evercoreisi.com

reacceleration is still on track, with growth in Agentforce, Data Cloud Charlie Zhou

646-551-8513 and Slack in a tug of war against headwinds in Tableau and Commerce

charlie.zhou@evercoreisi.com Cloud. Our recent industry checks were net positive: partner

conversations are more constructive than earlier in the year, with more

Weekly Video: Agentforce go-lives and production references and adoption shifting

from generic "we want AI" interest toward more defined business cases,

though it remains early and uneven.