Executives at I.B.M., expressing more confidence on Monday than in recent months that the company was on track to achieve its projected earnings target for the full year, sought to downplay the impact of Oracle’s planned purchase of Sun Microsystems, announced earlier in the day.

Just a few weeks ago, I.B.M. seemed poised to buy Sun, picking up its software and server computer business for itself. But Sun’s board balked at a slightly lowered bid from I.B.M., and the talks collapsed.

Mark Loughridge, the company’s chief financial officer, said Monday that Oracle and Sun had been partners in jointly selling their software and hardware to customers for decades, The New York Times’s Steve Lohr reported. But since 2000, Mr. Loughridge said, I.B.M. has steadily gained share in the market that is Sun’s mainstay, server computers running the Unix operating system. “I ask myself, ‘What’s changed?’ ” he said. “I’d say, ‘Nothing.’ ”

Mr. Loughridge gave no precise answer as to why I.B.M. did not complete the Sun deal, other than to say that I.B.M. has spent more than $20 billion on 100 acquisitions since 2000 and it has a “very disciplined process” for assessing the potential risk and reward on deals. In the end, he suggested, a Sun deal did not pass muster.

Reuters said that many analysts agreed a combined Oracle and Sun was unlikely to threaten I.B.M. any time soon, but some said that there was a chance IBM could regret the missed opportunity to acquire Sun’s assets like Java and Solaris operating system.

“Overall the whole acquisition is negative for IBM. Obviously not being able to have ownership of the proprietary Java programing language, that’s definitely a big negative,” Carlos Guillen, an analyst at research firm Wall Street Strategies, told Reuters.

I.B.M., meanwhile, reported a solid quarterly performance in a period of economic turmoil helped by cost-cutting steps and improved profit margins in its big services and software businesses.

I.B.M. has been able to hold up better than most of its rivals in the technology sector during the economic downturn. Its stability in troubled times is a byproduct of its strategy of recent years to move more into higher-margin software and services businesses, shifting away from lower-profit hardware lines, and to aggressively pursue opportunities in faster-growing markets abroad, like India and China.

The strategic shift leaves I.B.M. more insulated from the sharp cyclical swings in technology markets. Typically, an estimated 40 percent of its revenue and 60 percent of its profits come from subscription-style businesses charging yearly fees, like software and services, that lie at the heart of corporate customers’ operations. Such spending is difficult to cut much, even in downturns.

I.B.M.’s net income fell 1 percent to $2.3 billion in the quarter. But net income of $1.70 a share surpassed Wall Street analysts’ average estimate of $1.66 a share, as compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue fell 11 percent to $21.7 billion, though 7 percentage points of the decline was attributable to the strength of the dollar. Even so, the revenue figure came in below the analysts’ consensus of $22.5 billion.

The decline in revenue, after adjusting for currency, was not encouraging for the general health of information technology spending, according to analysts. Given its broad reach across product and geographic markets, I.B.M. is a bellwether for trends in technology spending by corporations.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, I.B.M.’s revenue, in constant currency, slipped 1.5 percent. So, analysts say, the weakness in business spending on technology persists, and may well be getting worse.

Still, I.B.M.’s ability to deliver stronger-than-expected profits on weaker-than-expected revenue is impressive, analysts say. The answer, they say, lies in the continuing drive into software and services, and sharply reducing expenses. “The mix of business is healthy, and I.B.M. has been doing a very good job at cost-cutting,” A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, told The Times.

In the conference call, I.B.M. reiterated its expectation that it would meet its 2009 profit goal of at least $9.20 a share. That is more optimistic than Wall Street analysts, whose consensus estimate, before I.B.M. reported its results, was $9.03 a share.

“I.B.M. is a company characterized by resiliency, and it is proving that its business model is more resilient than most in this environment,” David Grossman, an analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners, told The Times.

I.B.M.’s hardware business, as expected, has been its weakest segment. In a downturn, companies often simply stop buying new computers, and sales of I.B.M.’s hardware fell 23 percent (18 percent, adjusting for currency) to $3.2 billion.

Revenue from the company’s services business slipped 10 percent (2 percent, excluding currency) to $13.15 billion. Services contracts signed, a leading indicator, held up reasonably well at $12.5 billion, up 10 percent in constant dollars, including 16 contracts worth more than $100 million. There is a lot of interest, company executives said, in cost-saving outsourcing deals, like a $500-million, seven-year contract signed in March to manage data centers and software for Kaiser Permanente, the big California-based hospital and managed health care company.

The market that is delivering the strongest growth is the public sector, I.B.M. said, with revenue up 50 percent worldwide, as the $5 trillion in announced economic stimulus programs across the globe begin to create rising demand for technology and other goods, Mr. Loughridge said.

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