IBM appears to be pressing all the right keys

The company known as "Big Blue" made a $1.99bn (�1.07bn) profit in the second quarter of 2004, compared with $1.71bn for the same period last year.

Sales across all the company's geographical regions rose to total $23.2bn, up from $21.6bn in 2003.

IBM said it expected better results from its software division, which had flat sales, during the second half of the financial year.