International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2026 March 3, 2026 11:30 AM EST
Company Participants
Robert Thomas – Senior VP of IBM Software & Chief Commercial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Erik Woodring – Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Presentation
Erik Woodring
Morgan Stanley, Research Division
Well, let’s get started, guys. Thank you very much for joining us. Welcome to day 2 of the flagship TMT Conference. My name is Erik Woodring. I lead the U.S. IT hardware coverage here. I am delighted to be joined by Rob Thomas, IBM’s Head of Software and Chief Commercial Officer. But before we get started, I just need to read this disclosure statement. I need to mention that important disclosures can be found at the Morgan Stanley research disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative.
So Rob, thank you very much for joining us today.
Robert Thomas
Senior VP of IBM Software & Chief Commercial Officer
Thanks for having me. Great to be with you.
Question-and-Answer Session
Erik Woodring
Morgan Stanley, Research Division
So I think the best place to start maybe is just better understand how to think about the key drivers of growth for IBM. So exiting 2025, 3 of your 4 software subsegments were growing double digits. Mainframe had a record year, helping to offset maybe more tepid growth in services. So taking a step back as we think over kind of the medium term and beyond, what are the key growth drivers as we think about the IBM model? And let’s start from there.
Robert Thomas
Senior VP of IBM Software & Chief Commercial Officer
So maybe go back to 2020 when Arvind Krishna took over. He had the insight that we can be uniquely