big blue tops streets expectation for software sales inline for consulting just misses on infrastructure international business machines corp shares rose in the extended session wednesday after big blue topped earnings estimates and software sales expectations while reiterating its freecashflow forecast for the year on neutral revenue growth ibm ibm shares rose 3 after hours following a 11 decline in the regular session to close at 12632 the company reported firstquarter net income of 927 million or 102 a share compared with 733 million or 82 cents a share in the yearago period adjusted earnings which exclude stockbased compensation expenses and other items were 136 a share compared with 140 a share in the yearago period ibm which now receives about threequarters of its revenue from tech services reported revenue barely rose to 1425 billion from 142 billion in the yearago quarter analysts surveyed by factset had forecast 126 a share on revenue of 1435 billion prior to the earnings report one analyst had said ibm would have to turn in nearly pristine results to support the stock our firstquarter results demonstrate that clients continue turning to ibm for our unique combination of an open hybrid cloud platform enterprisefocused ai and business expertise to unlock productivity and drive efficiency in their operations said arvind krishna ibm chairman and chief executive  in a statement this gives us confidence in our current growth expectations for revenue and free cash flow for the year even though ibm posted its biggest sales increase in nearly a decade while cutting thousands of jobs a quarter ago analysts were laserfocused on freecash flow or fcf for the first quarter that came in at 13 billion while analysts expected 16 billion ibm reported 592 billion in software revenue for the first quarter while analysts forecast 583 billion 496 billion in consulting revenue versus the streets 5 billion and 31 billion in infrastructure revenue just below the consensus 319 billion ibm said it expects revenue growth will be neutral for the year compared with last years 6053 billion given current exchange rates and reiterated its forecast of 105 billion in fcf analysts had estimated 207 a share on revenue of 1578 billion for the second quarter and 945 a share on revenue of 627 billion for the year analysts currently expect 1045 billion in fcf for the year over the past year ibm has warned about currency headwinds because of strength in the dollar with the us dollar index reaching a 52week high in midseptember currently the dollar index is only up 1 compared with 12 months ago ibm shares have slipped 22 over the past 12 months and are down 103 year to date meanwhile the dow jones industrial average  which counts ibm among its 30 components is up 23 year to date while the sp 500 index is up 82 and the techheavy nasdaq composite index has gained more than 16 this content was created by marketwatch which is operated by dow jones  co marketwatch is published independently from dow jones newswires and the wall street journal