IBM 2010 Annual Report Download - page 10

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Finally, we have consistently built an organization
that can sustainably deliver that kind of value.
This is nontrivial. Over the past century, many
enterprises, institutions and governments have
come and gone. IBM’s longevity rests on our founders’
success in shaping a particular kind of organization.
It was a company that mastered the creation of
economic value from knowledge and information;
that was truly global—whatever that meant for each
era; and that pioneered a new kind of relationship
with society. Most importantly, IBM’s leaders believed
that a great company could only survive decades
of change through the intentional creation of a vibrant
culture, one grounded in shared beliefs and values.
And they and subsequent generations of IBMers
actually built it.
That is the legacy of IBM’s first century, and it continues
to shape our company today. It is no accident that
our growth strategies like Smarter Planet and Growth
Markets are aimed at the most promising business
and societal opportunities of our era. Nor is it surprising
that we are pushing the frontiers of science and
technology to achieve those ambitious goals—from
analytics, to cloud, to new workload-specific computing
models. It is also consistent with our DNA that we
have paid equal attention to the continual reinvention
of IBM itself—most importantly, reexamining and
applying our core values to how we run the company.
In a fundamental sense, by becoming a very different
company from what we were just a few years ago,
we have become much more like the company IBM
has been for most of its history. As we start our second
century, that’s a good place to be.
Let me close by expressing my pride in the world-
wide IBM team for bringing us to this point, and my
gratitude to you, our shareholders, for your unwavering
support. I hope that you are pleased with how your
company is performing and evolving. And I trust that
you share our excitement about the future of an
enterprise whose storied past is propelling us into
an enormously promising future.
Samuel J. Palmisano
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
This letter includes selected references to certain non-GAAP nancial measures that are made to facilitate a comparative view of the company’s ongoing operational performance. For information about
the company’s nancial results related to (i) free cash ow excluding Global Financing receivables and (ii) operating (non-GAAP) earnings, which are in each case non-GAAP measures, see the company’s
Form 8-K submitted to the SEC on January 18, 2011 (Attachment II
—
Non-GAAP Supplementary Materials).
8