IBM released strong third quarter earnings today, posting revenue of $24.3 billion, up 3 percent from the third quarter in 2009, and surpassing analyst expectations. EPS were $2.82 per share, compared with diluted earnings of $2.40 per share in the third quarter of 2009, an increase of 18 percent.
BigBlue ‘s third quarter income came in at $3.6 billion compared with $3.2 billion in the third quarter of 2009, an increase of 12 percent. While IBM posted mixed earnings for the second quarter of this year, the company’s third quarter earnings were much stronger.
Revenues from the Software segment were $5.2 billion, an increase of 1 percent compared with the third quarter of 2009. Revenues from IBM’s middleware products, which include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Lotus and Rational products, were $3.1 billion, an increase of 7 percent.
Specifically, revenues from Tivoli software increased 9 percent. Revenues from Lotus software and Rational software were flat. Revenues from the company’s business analytics operations across services and software segments increased 14 percent
IBM ended the third-quarter 2010 with $11.1 billion of cash on hand, which is a little bit less than the $12 billion leftover in second -quarter earnings. But IBM has been on an acquisition tear recently, buying Initiate Systems, Cast Iron Systems, Sterling Commerce, Coremetrics, BigFix, Datacap, Unica, OpenPages, Netezza and most recently, Blade Network Technology for $400 million.