IBM

IBM has continually shifted its business mix by commoditizing markets focusing on higher-value, more profitable markets. This includes spinning off printer manufacturer Lexmark in 1991 and selling off its personal computer (ThinkPad/ThinkCentre) and x86-based serverbusinesses to Lenovo (2005 and 2014, respectively), and acquiring companies such as PwC Consulting (2002), SPSS (2009), and The Weather Company (2016). Also in 2014, IBM announced that it would go ``fabless``, continuing to design semiconductors, but offloading manufacturing to GlobalFoundries.
Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is one of 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the world's largest employers, with (as of 2016) nearly 380,000 employees. Known as ``IBMers``, IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology and five National Medals of Science.

IBM is headquartered in Armonk, New York, a community 37 miles (60 km) north of Midtown Manhattan. Its principal building, referred to as CHQ, is a 283,000-square-foot (26,300 m2) glass and stone edifice on a 25-acre (10 ha) parcel amid a 432-acre former apple orchard the company purchased in the mid-1950s. There are two other IBM buildings within walking distance of CHQ: the North Castle office, which previously served as IBM's headquarters; and the IBM Learning Center (ILC), a resort hotel and training center, which has 182 guest rooms, 31 meeting rooms, and various amenities.

IBM operates in 170 countries as of 2016, with mobility centers in smaller markets areas and major campuses in the larger ones. In New York City, IBM has several offices besides CHQ, including the IBM Watson headquarters at Astor Place in Manhattan. Outside of New York, major campuses in the United States include Austin, Texas; Research Triangle Park (Raleigh-Durham), North Carolina; Rochester, Minnesota; and Silicon Valley, California.

IBM's real estate holdings are varied and globally diverse. Towers occupied by IBM include 1250 René-Lévesque (Montreal, Canada), Tour Descartes (Paris, France), and One Atlantic Center (Atlanta, Georgia, USA). In Beijing, China, IBM occupies Pangu Plaza, which is the city's seventh tallest building and overlooks Beijing National Stadium (``Bird's Nest``), which was home to the 2008 Summer Olympics.

IBM has a large and diverse portfolio of products and services. As of 2016, these offerings fall into the categories of cloud computing, cognitive computing, commerce, data and analytics, Internet of Things,IT infrastructure, mobile, and security.
IBM Cloud includes infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offered through public, private and hybrid cloud delivery models. For instance, the IBM Bluemix PaaS enables developers to quickly create complex websites on a pay-as-you-go model. IBM SoftLayer is a dedicated server, managed hosting and cloud computing provider, which in 2011 reported hosting more than 81,000 servers for more than 26,000 customers. IBM also offers Cloud Data Encryption Services (ICDES), using cryptographic splitting to secure customer data.

IBM also hosts the industry-wide cloud computing and mobile technologies conference InterConnect each year.
Hardware designed by IBM for these categories include IBM's POWER microprocessors, which are employed inside many console gaming systems, including Xbox 360,PlayStation 3, and Nintendo's Wii U.IBM Secure Blue is encryption hardware that can be built into microprocessors,and in 2014, the company revealed it was investing $3 billion over the following five years to design a neural chip that mimics the human brain, with 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses, but that uses just 1 kilowatt of power.In 2016, the company launched all-flash arrays designed for small and midsized companies, which includes software for data compression, provisioning, and snapshots across various systems.

IT outsourcing also represents a major service offered by IBM, with more than 40 data centers worldwide. alphaWorks is IBM's source for emerging software technologies, and SPSS is a software package used for statistical analysis. IBM's Kenexa suite provides employment and retention solutions, and includes the BrassRing, an applicant tracking system used by thousands of companies for recruiting.IBM also owns The Weather Company, which provides weather forecasting and includes weather.com and Weather Underground.