IBM Corp is aiming to double revenues from its e-business services this year to around $4bn through a recently created group dedicated to the opportunity. It told Merrill Lynch & Co that it expects to double this figure again going forwards. Although IBM owns only around 9% of the overall services market, it has supposedly closed $26bn in deals year to date with 88 deals topping $100m, the brokerage says. Services margins are set to rise and IBM is said to be taking $600m out of services costs this year with a further $680m reduction to follow. Employee turnover is said to be running about half the industry rate that Merrill equates to a $400m difference in expenses compared with the cost of having average industry turnover.
