Bangalore: With IBM planning to post its fourth quarter results on Thursday, January 19, after the market closes, investors will be looking to the number of contracts signed as a sign of growth attained.

According to Reuters, IBM's earnings narrowly missed analysts' expectations in the previous quarter, thus raising questions about whether it would be able to bring in required business to feed its vision of sizable growth.

The company however raised its prediction of profit for the year after its revenue exceeded expectations, and analysts (on the average) now expect operating earnings per share (EPS) of $4.62, which is more than a 10 percent increase compared to Q4 results that came out early 2011. Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S reported that IBM’s revenue amounted to $29.0 billion in the last quarter of 2010 as opposed to $29.7 billion in the present fourth quarter.

Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays Capital said that while Big Blue performed well in terms of service, there could be mixed results because of  the “volatile global macro-economic environment and the negative impact from currency.”  Market Watch noted that over the past five years, acquisitions have  been vital in enhancing IBM’s market shares related to computer hardware, and software.

The result of this quarter would be the first after Virginia Rometty was placed at the helm of the century-old firm. Rometty is expected to continue in predecessor Sam Palamasino’s vein and steer the company towards growth and subsequent attainment of an operating EPS of $20 at the least, by 2015. IBM, having bagged the most number of patents earlier this year, has its present CEO to thank as she considers the filing of patents a strategy to advance in the fields of computing.

Companies such as IBM that have a great global presence are threatened by the shape of economies in the US as well as Europe. Investors have been especially worried over revenue results of firms like Oracle and Accenture. However, this is not the case universally as SAP AG (the largest business software producer in the world) saw returns that were better than expected.