Technology powerhouse International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM) used to be an industry giant. Big Blue's market cap peaked at $239 billion in the summer of 1999, sparking speculation about perhaps forming the world's first trillion-dollar company.

But the dot-com bubble popped, and IBM changed gears. The market cap reached $230 billion again in 2012, ending an era where other tech giants were copying IBM's one-stop IT shop business model.

But that year also marked a sharp strategy shift under newly appointed CEO Ginni Rometty. IBM stiff-armed the hardware side of its operations, apart from the unique mainframe systems segment. When Rometty handed off the reins to current CEO Arvind Krishna in the spring of 2020, IBM was refocused on hybrid cloud computing, data security, and artificial intelligence (AI).

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Source Fool.com