IBM's mainframe sales get mugged by AI hardware panic, stock loses more than a quarter of its value

IBM says customers spooked by soaring demand for AI infrastructure raided their mainframe budgets to stockpile servers, storage, and memory instead, knocking Big Blue's flagship Z business off course. Ahead of its full calendar Q2 earnings release next week, IBM took the unusual step of publishing preliminary quarterly results alongside a letter from CEO Arvind Krishna explaining why the numbers fell short of expectations. The biggest disappointment came in Infrastructure, where revenue fell 7 p