Who are IBM’s competitors?
IBM names 16 companies as competitors in its latest annual report, on 3 fronts. 15 companies name IBM back.
Skip to the field, head to head ↓IBM company profile
Six companies name IBM as a rival, each in a different market
Ask who competes with IBM, and the answer depends on who is asking. Netscout lists it among network observability providers. Everpure puts it with storage vendors. MongoDB places it among "established legacy database software providers". Rubrik sees a data protection vendor, SailPoint an identity provider, and Leidos a government contractor. Six companies, six different markets, one name.
IBM's own list has the same spread. It names 16 competitors across three fronts: two in global IT services, nine in its software segment, and five in hardware and storage. Four names are gone from the list: Informatica, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco Systems and VMware. The map keeps moving, and IBM stays on other people's maps.
Scale shows the cost of that reach. IBM earned $67.5 billion and grew 8%. Oracle earned $67.4 billion and grew 17%. Broadcom earned $63.9 billion and grew 24%. Being a rival everywhere is not the same as being the one others plan around. The question for IBM is where it is the second one.
Where IBM says it competes
“global firms such as Accenture, Capgemini”
“The principal competitors in this segment include: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, BMC, Broadcom, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and Splunk, a CISCO Company.”
“Our principal competitors include: Dell Technologies, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), Intel, NetApp and Pure Storage”
Who names IBM as a competitor
“In the enterprise market, our competitors include companies who provide network observability, application performance management, infrastructure performance management and other related solutions such as CA Technologies (a Broadcom Inc. business), Cisco Systems, Dynatrace, Datadog, ExtraHop, IBM, Infovista, Viavi, …”
10-K for 2026“Our main competitors include legacy vendors, such as Dell EMC, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara, HP Enterprise, and IBM, each of which offer a broad range of systems targeting various use cases and end markets and have the technical and financial resources to bring competitive products to market.”
10-K for 2026“We primarily compete with established legacy database software providers such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and other similar companies.”
10-K for 2026“Our main competitors fall into the following categories: • Data management and protection vendors, such as Commvault, Dell EMC, IBM, Veeam, and Cohesity; • Smaller cloud and SaaS data management vendors with products that compete in some of our markets; and • Vendors that provide cyber/ransomware detection and inves…”
10-K for 2026“Our competitors include large public companies, such as IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle that offer identity solutions within their product portfolios, and identity centric solution providers, including Palo Alto Networks (CyberArk), Okta, and One Identity.”
10-K for 2026“Our principal competitors currently include the following companies: Accenture Federal Services LLC, Amentum Services Inc., KBR, Inc., BAE Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., CACI International Inc., Deloitte, General Dynamics Corporation, GovCIO, IBM, KBR Inc., L3Harris Technologies, Inc., Lockheed Martin Corporatio…”
10-K for 2026“With respect to on-premise infrastructure monitoring, we compete with diversified technology companies and systems management vendors including IBM, Microsoft Corporation, and SolarWinds Corporation.”
10-K for 2025“In certain areas, including governance, risk and compliance (GRC), Matrix competes with large global corporations such as IBM, Accenture and Oracle, as well as the consulting divisions of the Big-4 accounting firms and system vendors that provide implementation and support services for their own products.”
20-F for 2025“Large technology companies such as Google and IBM, and startup companies such as Rigetti Computing, are adopting a superconducting circuit technology approach, in which small amounts of electrical current circulate in a loop of superconducting material (usually metal where the electrical resistance vanishes at low t…”
10-K for 2025“Our primary competitors are other infrastructure and cloud management software technology vendors, such as Broadcom, Cisco Systems Inc., Dell Technologies Inc., IBM, NetApp Inc., Nutanix, and Pure Storage and public cloud vendors like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.”
10-K for 2025“In the fraud solutions market for banking, we compete primarily with Nice Actimize, Experian, Pegasystems, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, SAS, ACI Worldwide, IBM, Feedzai and Featurespace.”
10-K for 2025“Our primary competitors in the U.S. Federal Services Segment are General Dynamics Information Technology, Deloitte, Leidos, IBM, Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, and other federal contractors.”
10-K for 2025“For our ALM products, we compete with IBM, Jama Software, Inc. and Siemens AG.”
10-K for 2025“Global technology and consulting firms such as Accenture, Capgemini, HP, and IBM; and”
10-K for 2025“Azure faces diverse competition from companies such as Amazon, Broadcom, Google, IBM, Oracle, and open source offerings.”
10-K for 2024Who joined, who left
Against its annual report for fiscal 2022, IBM’s latest list adds no one; it no longer names Informatica, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco Systems and VMware.
| Company | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accenture | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Alphabet | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Amazon | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| BMC | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Broadcom | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Capgemini | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Dell Technologies | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Hewlett-Packard Enterprise | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Intel | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Microsoft | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| NetApp | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Oracle | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Pure Storage | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Salesforce | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| SAP | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Informatica | ● | ● | ● | · |
| Splunk, a CISCO | ● | ● | ● | ● |
| Palo Alto Networks | ● | ● | · | · |
| Cisco Systems | ● | · | · | · |
| VMware | ● | · | · | · |
● named in that year’s annual report, for the fiscal years shown.
The field, from the filings
| Company | Fiscal year | Revenue | Growth | Net margin | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | 2025 | $67.5B | +8% | 16% | – |
| Amazon | 2025 | $716.9B | +12% | 11% | 1,576,000 |
| Alphabet (Google) | 2025 | $402.8B | +15% | 33% | 190,820 |
| Microsoft | FY to Jun 2026 | $331.8B | +18% | 40% | 223,000 |
| Dell | FY to Jan 2026 | $113.5B | +19% | 5% | 97,000 |
| Oracle | FY to May 2026 | $67.4B | +17% | 25% | 141,000 |
| Broadcom | FY to Nov 2025 | $63.9B | +24% | 36% | 33,000 |
| Intel | 2025 | $52.9B | 0% | −1% | – |
| Salesforce | FY to Jan 2026 | $41.5B | +10% | 18% | 83,334 |
| Hewlett Packard Enterprise | FY to Oct 2025 | $34.3B | +14% | 0% | – |
| Leidos Holdings | FY to Jan 2026 | $17.2B | +3% | 8% | 47,000 |
Each company’s latest fiscal year as reported to the SEC, in US dollars; fiscal years end in different months. Rivals that report outside the US or in other currencies are not shown.
What the rivals have done lately
“(a) Goodwill acquired represents goodwill recognized in connection with the Company’s acquisition of Moogsoft Inc. during the fiscal year ended February 2, 2024.” filing
Decisions that shaped the field
Asked about IBM’s competitors
Who are IBM's competitors?
In its annual report for fiscal 2025, IBM names 16 competitors across 3 fronts: global it services competitors, principal competitors in this segment and hardware and storage competitors. 10-K for fiscal 2025
Which companies name IBM as a competitor?
15 companies in our coverage name it in their own annual reports: Netscout Systems, Everpure, MongoDB, Rubrik, SailPoint, Leidos Holdings, Datadog, Formula Systems, IonQ, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fair Isaac, Maximus, PTC, WNS and Microsoft.
How does IBM compare with its rivals?
IBM reported $67.5B in revenue in its latest fiscal year, +8% on a year, with a 16% net margin. Amazon: $716.9B, 11% net margin; Alphabet (Google): $402.8B, 33% net margin.
What are the alternatives to IBM?
The companies IBM itself names as competitors are listed above, front by front, each in its own report’s words. Which matters for a given buyer depends on the job, not the list.
What would it actually cost a challenger to take your customer?
Sources: IBM’s annual report for fiscal 2025 and earlier years (2022, 2023, 2024); the annual reports of the companies that name it; each company’s financial data as reported to the SEC; Stratrix Decision Records. Analysis and data, not advice.
Keep going
Tools to try
- Ansoff move finderFramework: Ansoff Matrix
- Business model canvas builderFramework: Business Model Canvas
- Change readiness checkFramework: Kotter's 8-Step Change Model
- Five Forces scorerFramework: Porter's Five Forces
- SMART goal builderFramework: SMART Goals
- SWOT builderFramework: SWOT Analysis
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