IBM didn’t earn the ominous nickname “Big Blue” by selling software. Legend has it that the nickname comes from the company’s big, blue mainframes of decades past (though, to be honest, the origins of that name are hotly debated). To this day, IBM is still seen as being, foremost, a server hardware company–especially after it sold what remained of its consumer PC division to Lenovo. That could all change however, with the fruits of IBM’s software acquisition labors turning a healthy profit. Among the surprises in IBM’s impressive Q4 earnings statement was the following figure: $5.6 billion in software sales, a 14 percent increase over last year’s report. There’s certainly something to be said for offering integrated hardware/software solutions for the data center and with Oracle and SAP failing to impress financially this quarter, there’s plenty of room for IBM to get a leg up.

For more on IBM’s Q4 report:
– see this ZDnet blog entry