[fleitz]

Kinda, you can tell what kind of a company is by where it makes it's profit.

IBM is a services company that develops technology so it can service that technology.

Microsoft is a desktop operating system and office suite company that develops software to sell desktop operating system and office suites.

Apple is a consumer electronics company that develops technology to sell gizmos.

Facebook is an ad platform company that develops software to sell ads.

ARM is a licensing company that develops technology so it can sell licenses.

Wal-Mart is a retail company that develops technology to deliver lower prices.

Technology means far more than just ICs and software.

[flixic]

"ARM is a licensing company that develops technology so it can sell licenses."

I think ARM falls nicely into "technology company". Calling something "a licensing company" doesn't make sense when they license their own technology products.

Same for IBM. They might service software from other vendors, but I suspect most of their profit is by servicing their own. As such, again, it doesn't make much sense to call them "a services company".

[tg3]

IBM also makes a large amount of money servicing and implementing other company's technology products, specifically SAP and Oracle (and probably a lot of Microsoft too). To me, they are a technology services company providing consulting, implementation, and outsourcing services, and they also happen to develop some of the technology products that they sometimes implement.

[vonmoltke]

That assessment of IBM is way off. They service other company's products insofar as is necessary to develop complete integrated systems for their customers, systems they build mostly with their own technology elements. In some cases, they build systems entirely with their own elements (a Power7 machine running a DB2 server in AIX, for example). Their relatively recent acquisitions of companies like Rational and Telelogic were moves to own more of what they service. Owning and developing the hardware and software they sell and service is core to IBM's business.