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Sentiment · FY2026 Q1
What companies say about each other on earnings calls — extracted verbatim from public transcripts. Mentions from the newest quarter are a Pro feature.
“the ability to federate Data 360 to the IBM main frame, which is technology that we just introduced in Tokyo two weeks ago at our world tour”
Salesforce introduced Data 360 federation to the IBM mainframe, deepening interoperability with IBM's installed base as a data-integration partner.
“we're deepening our partnership with IBM to deliver the Quantum-safe readiness and remediation service”
Palo Alto is deepening its IBM partnership on a quantum-safe readiness and PQC migration service.
“Our Agentforce partner network allows customers to deploy pre-built agents and use agent actions from partners like AWS, Google, IBM, Workday and more.”
IBM is part of Salesforce's Agentforce partner network, letting customers deploy pre-built agents and agent actions.
“This airline selected CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. to replace legacy AV in the fall and then turned to us to replace their legacy QRadar SIEM.”
CrowdStrike cites a major US airline's decision to rip out IBM's legacy QRadar SIEM in favor of Falcon Next-Gen SIEM as a representative competitive displacement win.
“rather than partnering with expense management providers as we've done with whether it was Concur or IBM before that, we'll now have our own expense management offering.”
IBM was a prior expense-management partner for Amex; the read-through is that Amex is moving off third-party providers like IBM in favor of its own Center-based offering.
“innovative new category alliances with Meta, IBM, Polymarket, DoorDash and Ram.”
TKO signed IBM as a new-category global partnership alliance.
“IBM, one of our valued strategic partners selected Data Cloud in the quarter to enhance their global client service with a unified view of all client interactions and actionable usage insight they can deliver even more efficient personalized experiences.”
IBM selected Salesforce Data Cloud to unify its global client-service data, a signal of continued enterprise AI/data-platform investment on IBM's side.
“we have joint solutions with Microsoft and Red Hat and others.”
NetApp offers joint on-prem alternative solutions with IBM's Red Hat for customers reconsidering their VMware architecture.
“But we've had a phenomenal partnership with IBM where we have been able to go with them to many of their large customers and work them through the transformation of going from an on-premise SOC to what is effectively now a cloud-delivered SOC.”
Palo Alto credits its partnership with IBM, following the QRadar deal, for driving large customers' migration from on-prem SIEM to its cloud-delivered XSIAM platform.
“We also expanded our work with IBM on their Maximo AI assistant powered by watsonx AI.”
Qualcomm expanded its partnership with IBM to support IBM's Maximo AI assistant, powered by watsonx AI, on Qualcomm's industrial IoT platforms.
“We're executing this alongside our long-term partner, IBM, leveraging the same playbook and the same team that helped them successfully transform their own business and deliver significant value for their shareholders through AI.”
Fiserv is running its Project Elevate AI transformation with IBM, a services engagement that is a positive read-through on IBM's AI consulting business.
“with the IBM partnership, we will make S&P Global agents available within IBM's systems so that IBM's customers can actually access S&P Global maritime and trade insights”
S&P Global frames its IBM collaboration as a new customer-acquisition channel, embedding S&P agents and data inside IBM's systems.
“We also announced new or deepened strategic partnerships through the year, with AMD, Anthropic, AWS, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle.”
IBM names Oracle among the strategic partnerships it announced or deepened during the year, a read-through on the IBM-Oracle relationship.
“We also announced new or deepened strategic partnerships through the year, with AMD, Anthropic, AWS, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle.”
IBM names Microsoft among the strategic partnerships it announced or deepened during the year, indicating a continued Microsoft ecosystem relationship.
“We also announced new or deepened strategic partnerships through the year, with AMD, Anthropic, AWS, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle.”
IBM names AWS (Amazon) among the hyperscaler partnerships it deepened during the year, a read-through on Amazon's cloud partnership with IBM.
| Analyst | Firm | Questions (Challenge)Percentage of questions scored as challenging — where the analyst pushed back, pressed for specifics, or questioned management's assumptions. |
|---|---|---|
| Jim Schneider | Goldman Sachs | 7 (14%) |
| Wamsi Mohan | Bank of America | 7 (14%) |
| Ben Reitzes | Melius Research |
“We also announced new or deepened strategic partnerships through the year, with AMD, Anthropic, AWS, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle.”
IBM names AMD among the strategic partnerships it announced or deepened during the year, indicating an ongoing AMD relationship in IBM's ecosystem.
“Our collaboration with organizations such as Cisco, participation in government initiatives like the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, and DARPA's quantum benchmarking initiative”
IBM cites Cisco among its quantum-computing ecosystem collaborators, a read-through on Cisco's involvement in IBM's quantum roadmap.
“Recently, we announced a partnership between Red Hat and NVIDIA that aligns our hybrid AI solutions and NVIDIA's AI stack.”
IBM's Red Hat partnered with NVIDIA to align hybrid AI solutions with NVIDIA's AI stack for deploying AI-accelerated applications across environments.
“In infrastructure, clients such as CVS are turning to Z17's AI capabilities for enhanced management of mainframe application workloads and increased resiliency.”
CVS is named as adopting IBM Z17's AI capabilities for mainframe workload management and resiliency, a read-through on CVS's infrastructure modernization.
“Companies like Morgan Stanley and FedEx are leveraging our technology solutions and infusing our Gen AI products into core workflows, and Mastercard is leveraging our technology solutions, including data management platforms, software platforms, and GenAI products and solutions.”
Mastercard is cited as an IBM client using IBM data management, software, and GenAI solutions, a read-through on Mastercard's technology stack investments.
“Companies like Morgan Stanley and FedEx are leveraging our technology solutions and infusing our Gen AI products into core workflows, and Mastercard is leveraging our technology solutions, including data management platforms, software platforms, and GenAI products and solutions.”
FedEx is named as an IBM client embedding IBM's GenAI products into core workflows, indicating FedEx's investment in AI-enabled operations.
“Companies like Morgan Stanley and FedEx are leveraging our technology solutions and infusing our Gen AI products into core workflows, and Mastercard is leveraging our technology solutions, including data management platforms, software platforms, and GenAI products and solutions.”
Morgan Stanley is cited as an IBM client infusing IBM's GenAI products into core workflows, a read-through on Morgan Stanley's enterprise AI adoption.
“Bob introduces intelligent orchestration between industry-leading frontier models such as Anthropic, Claude, and Mistral small language models, including IBM Granite and custom models, all optimized for cost and performance.”
IBM's Project Bob dev system orchestrates Anthropic's Claude as a frontier model, a product-level dependency embedding Anthropic in IBM's software development tooling.
“Our announced acquisition of Confluent is another pillar in this strategy, helping unify our hybrid cloud and automation solutions through a smart data platform.”
IBM's pending acquisition of Confluent, positioned to unify hybrid cloud and automation via real-time data streaming; IBM plans to close by mid-2026 and drive go-to-market synergies.
| Amit Daryanani | Evercore ISI | 6 (0%) |
| Erik Woodring | Morgan Stanley | 6 (17%) |
| Matt Swanson | RBC Capital Markets | 4 (0%) |
| Brian Essex | JPMorgan | 3 (0%) |
| Brent Thill | Jefferies | 2 (0%) |
| Firm | Analysts | Questions (Challenge)Percentage of questions scored as challenging — where the analyst pushed back, pressed for specifics, or questioned management's assumptions. |
|---|---|---|
| Goldman Sachs | 1 | 7 (14%) |
| Bank of America | 1 | 7 (14%) |
| Melius Research | 1 | 6 (33%) |
| Evercore ISI | 1 | 6 (0%) |
| Morgan Stanley | 1 | 6 (17%) |
| RBC Capital Markets | 1 | 4 (0%) |
| JPMorgan | 1 | 3 (0%) |
| Jefferies | 2 | 3 (0%) |
IBM capped fiscal 2025 with Q4 revenue growing 9% as software accelerated to 11% and the z17 delivered the highest Q4 Z revenue in two decades. Full-year free cash flow reached a record $14.7 billion, up 16%, and the GenAI book of business exceeded $12.5 billion. Management introduced FY2026 guidance calling for 5%+ revenue growth with software at 10% and free cash flow up approximately $1 billion to approximately $15.7 billion.
Cloud & AI | Revenue Growth | Demand | Capital Allocation | Macroeconomic | Guidance Reliability | M&A | Competitive Dynamics | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024Q4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 2025Q1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| 2025Q2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 2025Q3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 2025Q4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 2026Q1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| '24Q4 | '25Q1 | '25Q2 | '25Q3 | '25Q4 | '26Q1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud & AI | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 |
| Revenue Growth | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Demand | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | |
| Capital Allocation | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Macroeconomic | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Guidance Reliability | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| M&A | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Competitive Dynamics | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Company | Score | Trend | Rev YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
IBM International Business Machines Corporation | 8 | +9.5% | |
| ACN Accenture | 6 | +5.6% | |
| BR Broadridge Financial Solutions | 8 | +7.8% | |
| CDW CDW | 8 | +9.3% | |
| CTSH Cognizant | 8 | +5.8% | |
| EPAM EPAM Systems | 8 | +7.6% | |
| FIS Fidelity National Information Services | 7 | +30.1% | |
| FISV Fiserv, Inc. | 3 | -2.0% | |
| IT Gartner | 8 | +2.0% | |
| JKHY Jack Henry & Associates | 8 | +8.7% | |
| LDOS Leidos | 7 | +3.6% |