IBM Beats Big

"It was a very good turnaround, I feel. The bookings were not as light as many anticipated, including me," Wagle said. "They were lower than the Street's estimate, but not crazy, not disastrous."

Indeed, last quarter, both the company and analysts alike were somewhat disappointed with the global services bookings.

"It's still not where it needs to be," Loughridge said. Part of the problem was "we just didn't get (some of) the deals closed in time as a number of opportunities slipped out of the quarter."

Still, he was pleased with the improvement in short-term signings, which were up 9% over the same period last year. Longer-term signings fell 15%.

"Our strong performance is the result of excellent execution and the repositioning of IBM's business model to capture the growth and profit areas of a rapidly changing IT industry," IBM chairman Sam Palmisano said in a statement.

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