The International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) announced on Tuesday its fourth-quarter earnings of 2009.

The fourth-quarter income was $4.8 billion, or $3.59 per share, a 10 percent jump from the year-ago quarter and the revenue for the quarter was $27.2 billion.

For the fiscal year, the company reported net income of $13.4 billion, or $13.01 per share, a 13 percent gain over the previous year.

Sales for the year were $95.8 billion, an 8 percent drop from the previous year.

Analysts had been expecting earnings of $3.47 per share on sales of $26.98 billion for the quarter.

For fiscal 2010, Microsoft sees operating expense between $26.2 billion and $26.5 billion, lower than its prior estimate range of $26.6 billion - $26.9 billion.

IBM is the world's largest server maker. However, Cisco Systems, Inc. , which has announced its entry into the server market, and Oracle Corp., which is in the process of acquiring Sun Microsystems, Inc., will be IBM's tough competitors in the segment in future.

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