Despite Flat Sales, I.B.M. Earnings Beat Estimates - NYTimes.com

For more details, see the related IBM press release

"The first quarter displayed how the breadth of the company’s business serves to deliver steady profits. The weakness in the hardware business was offset by higher profit margins in services and strong growth in emerging markets.
Hardware sales fell 7 percent, to $3.7 billion, pulled down by lower sales of mainframe and large Unix data-serving computers, compared with the previous year when new models had recently been introduced. But that falloff was more than offset by modest growth and higher profit margins in I.B.M.’s big software and services business.
I.B.M.’s big services business, which accounts for 57 percent of its revenue, more than $15 billion in the quarter, grew a scant 1 percent. But the profit of the services business rose 11 percent.
The software unit grew by 5 percent, to $5.6 billion, while profits in that high-margin business increased 12 percent. The software business generates 43 percent of the company’s profit."

Despite Flat Sales, I.B.M. Earnings Beat Estimates - NYTimes.com