International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N): An Afternoon with IBM‘s Head of Software & Chief Commercial Officer

Research evidence excerpt

International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N): An Afternoon with IBM‘s Head of Software & Chief Commercial Officer

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29 Jul 2026 07:28:04 ET │ 16 pages

International Business Machines Corp

(IBM.N)

An Afternoon with IBM’s Head of Software & Chief Commercial Officer

CITI'S TAKE

We broached several topics with IBM’s Chief Commercial Officer and SVP Buy

Software, Rob Thomas, walking away with a crisper sense of the Price (28 Jul 26 16:00) US$227.55

temporal/idiosyncratic nature of 2Q execution hiccups/ELA seasonality, Target price US$245.00

inputs to organic software growth rehabilitation, M&A

philosophy/framework, and SKU-level growth-upside opportunities. Expected share price return 7.7%

Product/GTM strategy details on IBM emphasizing ROIC on its recent step- Expected dividend yield 3.0%

up in organic R&D, alongside sales capacity resource re-allocations Expected total return 10.6%targeting a broader audience (beyond IBM’s top-1K logos) were salient

discussion themes, and where we gleaned/inferred openness to near-term Market Cap US$214,383M

M&A (acknowledging softer market valuations, speed-to-market

dynamics), with cyber intriguingly alluded to as a category in the mix

(identity; synergies with Hashi Vault). Bottomline, armed with improved

confidence on discrete growth vectors within software, slipped deal Price Performance

rebounds, clarity on “AI story”, and quantum “call option” we stay Buy, but (RIC: IBM.N, BB: IBM US)

we recognize execution skepticism constraining the investment narrative

into a “show-me” phase are likely to keep stock tethered. Thematically-

categorized, detailed notes inside.

Most incremental insights — 1) RedHat, HashiCorp, Confluent, Agentic AI

(orchestration) are highest-confidence ARR accelerants, where we sensed