Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, July 12, 2019

Article Excerpt

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP., $142.74, New York symbol IBM, is one of the world’s largest computer companies, with operations in over 175 countries. IBM completed its acquisition of Red Hat Inc. (New York symbol RHT). At $34 billion, this is the biggest acquisition in the company’s 108-year history. Red Hat is a leading developer of software for cloud-based computing systems. Its programs use the open-source Linux operating system. That lets Red Hat adapt its software to work on a wide variety of computer hardware and cloud systems. (Cloud systems let users access computer programs online and store files on a company’s remote servers.) The purchase will add $3.4 billion to IBM’s annual revenue of $79.6 billion. The addition of Red Hat also makes the company the largest provider of software for hybrid cloud systems. They combine company-owned servers with public cloud services (such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure). IBM estimates that just 20% of business computing activity is currently done in the…