IBM Corp chairman and chief executive Lou Gerstner, in his fourth annual presentation to analysts since he took the Big Blue helm, attempted to justify the 5% to 8% growth rate of recent quarters against the double digit rates enjoyed by many competitors, conceding that IBM will never grow at the 40% to 50% rates of growth of the industry’s meteor companies, but said he wouldn’t want that for IBM in any case, as all meteors come back down to earth. Rather, he insisted that the firm was more focused on raising its per-share profits, partly by buying back much of its own stock.