Staff doubled this year to nearly 700, with key hires from Oracle, Google and Salesforce.

FORBES: How The Kids At Box Are Disrupting Software's Most Lucrative Game

The solid IBM results follow similarly solid recent results from other key IT players like Oracle (ORCL) and Accenture (ACN).

FORBES: IBM Q1 Tops Street Estimates; Hikes Full Year Forecast

"We can say a number of key allegations made by Oracle and examined by us appear to be unfounded, " Kagermann said, even as he expressed his "regret" over the matter.

FORBES: SAP Gets Busted

Those results were among the key findings in a study, commissioned by Oracle, of 1, 342 business executives from a companies in a wide range of industries in 18 countries across the world.

FORBES: 10 Reasons Why CEOs Don't Understand Their Customers

Another key differentiator: are you going into an organization like Oracle, where sales calls the shots?

FORBES: Corporate-Culture Slogans Need This 11-Step X-Ray Test

In explaining his decision to make the acquisition today, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison boiled down Sun into a company of two key assets: Java and the Solaris operating system.

FORBES: Oracle Sues Google: or, How to Get a Computer Company for Free