IBM to invest heavily in cloud and data despite revenue decline

IBM reported its fourteenth straight quarter of declining sales on Monday, but don't expect the company to change its strategy.
Chief Financial Officer Martin Schroeter told skeptical analysts that his company is focused on growing its cloud computing, data analytics, security, and mobile businesses.
The "aggressive investments" required today would pay off in the future, he promised.
"We are investing heavily into Watson, we are investing heavily into Watson Health," said Schroeter, who acknowledged that the spending has yet to pay off.
"But they are the right things to do because those have tremendous futures to them."
The bright side, according to Schroeter, was the 17% year-to-year growth in what IBM calls its strategic imperatives that include cloud computing, data analytics, and mobile.
"Where we have been investing, we have been driving tremendous growth," Schroeter said.
The company also said there will be layoffs as part of its continued transition, but it didn't give any specific numbers.