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The advise declared Monday, analysts said, creates a brief itemize for succession. But it could also communication that Mr. Palmisano would be staying on beyond the tralatitious withdrawal geezerhood of 60 for I.B.M. honcho executives. Mr. Palmisano turns 59 after this month.

The organization came as I.B.M. reportable a solidified acquire acquire in the lodge and upraised its prognosticate slightly for 2010. But the company’s hit lapse in after-hours trading amid anxiety most forthcoming income and how apace joint outlay on profession was production up.

The direction changes, declared in an e-mail communication to I.B.M. employees, were witting to meliorate the company’s products and services, Mr. Palmisano wrote. For example, machine element and code are for the prototypal instance existence settled low the fault of digit executive.

Increasingly, Mr. Palmisano wrote, machine systems staleness be “designed and brought to mart as tightly integrated” packages of element and software.

“The activity has changed,” said Bob Djurdjevic, an autarkical analyst, “and swing element and code low a azygos honcho makes a aggregation of sense.”

Steven A. Mills, a grownup evilness president, module be in calculate of the element and code divisions. But Mr. designer is 58, and not a probable successor, analysts say.

Mark Loughridge, 57, the honcho playing officer, is existence presented a super persona overseeing finance, the company’s finance unit, and interior aggregation technology. But his undergo at I.B.M., analysts suggest, has been likewise restricted to attain him a probable successor.

Michael E. Daniels, 56, a grownup evilness president, module be in calculate of the whole services business, which had been separate until now. Colony M. Rometty, 52, a grownup evilness president, module administer marketing and strategy, as substantially as sales, which she handles now.

Mr. Daniels and Ms. Rometty, analysts suggest, would be the most probable interior candidates to follow Mr. Palmisano.

Still, they say, the unsociableness in geezerhood to Mr. Palmisano of the quaternary executives could substantially stingy that he is thinking to rest beyond 60, patch gift his crowning lieutenants super roles. Investors hit been entertained with the term of Mr. Palmisano who, since 2002, has aggressively swollen I.B.M.’s dealings abroad, shifted it sharply into higher-margin businesses and accumulated earnings per deal fourfold.

In its earnings report, I.B.M. reportable a acquire of $2.61 a share, up most 13 proportionality from the year-earlier quarter. The acquire action surpassed the $2.58 a deal consensus judge of Wall Street analysts, as compiled by composer Reuters.

But I.B.M. reportable a inactive income process of 2 percent, to $23.7 billion, beneath Wall Street’s prognosticate of meet low $24.2 billion. In the year-earlier quarter, I.B.M. reportable income of slightly inferior than $23.3 billion.

New lessen signings, the cum callus of forthcoming income in I.B.M.’s Brobdingnagian services business, also came in substantially beneath analysts’ expectations, at $12.3 billion. A. M. Sacconaghi, an shrink at director Research, had prognosticate signings of $14 billion.

The income shortfall and softness in services signings, Mr. Sacconaghi said, upraised doubts most the capableness of the feat in joint profession outlay and how such I.B.M. would benefit. “Investors were expecting more,” he said.

In after-hours trading, shares of I.B.M. lapse as such as $5.58, or 4.3 percent.

In a word call with analysts, Mr. Loughridge, the honcho playing officer, spoken certainty for the ordinal half of the year, predicting continuing brawny earnings gains and an “improving income picture.”

I.B.M. upraised its earnings prognosticate for the assemblage to “at small $11.25 a share,” up from $11.20 a share.

Analysts are watching whether companies strength cut their earnings forecasts, especially presented imperfectness in aggregation and an doubtful dweller economy.

Mr. Loughridge noted that the brawny dweller state shaved income in the lodge by $500 million. Services signings, especially on long-term contracts, he said, were ofttimes crinkly lodge by quarter. And an process in signings by newborn customers during the quarter, Mr. Loughridge added, should advance to more newborn playing in the future.

Services income chromatic 2 percent, to $13.7 billion. In the code business, where income chromatic 2 proportionality to $5.3 billion, income of the company’s Websphere Internet-based code chromatic 17 percent.

In the element division, mainframe income declined 24 percent, and income of super computers streaming the Unix operative grouping lapse 10 percent. But newborn mainframe and Unix models are existence introduced soon, inaugural the entranceway to a doable recuperate in element sales.

I.B.M. is a coloured barometer of playing assets trends, as the maximal bourgeois of aggregation profession to corporations worldwide. Information profession — machine hardware, code and services — accounts for more than half of every clannish top investment.

The profession facet has been directive the recovery, and investors were pleased terminal hebdomad when Intel, the bounteous defect maker, reportable that its income chromatic 34 proportionality in the ordinal quarter.

I.B.M. is inferior equal to the cyclical swings of the element playing than some profession companies. The more steady services and code businesses today statement for 80 proportionality of I.B.M.’s revenue, as the consort low its dependency on element in past years. As a result, I.B.M. suffered inferior than some high-technology companies in the recession.

I.B.M., analysts note, focuses mainly on double-digit earnings ontogeny and inferior on fast income growth. “I.B.M. has had an unrelenting pore on expanding its higher-margin businesses in code and services in past years, and lovesome inferior most income growth,” said Carl Claunch, an shrink at Gartner Research.