Following the $1.75bn sale of its personal computer business to Lenovo of China, only 20 per cent of International Business Machines' annual revenues will come from hardware. How much longer, ask Wall Street wags, before the once dominant computer company has to drop "machines" from its name?

If these jibes get under the skin of Bill Zeitler, it does not show. Although software and services now dominate IBM, Mr Zeitler's systems and technology division, which makes computer servers, storage and silicon chips, is hardly small. Annual revenues are about $20bn.