Live! IBM Reports Earnings And It's A Beat

IBM reported earnings per share of $4.32 and revenue of $24.36 billion.

Wall Street analysts expected $4.29 cents earnings per share on $24.12 billion in revenue. (The expectations for revenue were modest, a 3% decline).

The expectations for profits were significantly higher as IBM marches toward its promised $20 EPS by 2015. IBM reported $3.22 EPS in the year ago quarter.

This is an important beat for IBM. Revenues at IBM have been shrinking for a while and it's been struggling to hit Wall Street's revenue expectations for more than a year now. During fiscal 2013 it missed expectations four times in a row. It also missed on revenue for its first quarter 2014.

In May, CEO Ginni Rometty said that growing revenue was "not the No. 1 priority on my list." Instead, she's trimming the company's least profitable business units (commodity hardware) and shifting resources to new, growing and more profitable areas (namely cloud computing). She's laying off thousands of workers in the process and hiring thousands of others with new skill sets.

"We don't want empty calories," Rometty told the New York Times. "So when people keep pushing us for growth, that is not the number one priority on my list."

More to come.