“This now represents strong high-single digit growth for the year.”

In context

“ow, let me bring it back to the IBM level to wrap up. Through the first-nine months of the year, we have grown revenue by 3%, expanded our operating pretax margin by 150 basis points and grown free cash flow by $1.5 billion. We have made solid progress in transitioning our portfolio to a higher growth, higher margin business that is well positioned as we head into next year. With nine months of the year behind us, let me now focus on the fourth quarter. We expect revenue growth in the fourth quarter to be consistent with the third quarter levels. Software revenue growth has accelerated throughout the year, and this should continue. We expect low double-digit fourth quarter revenue growth for software, led by Red Hat growth in the mid-teens and continued strength in transaction processing. This now represents strong high-single digit growth for the year. Consulting revenue is up 1% year-to-date, impacted by challenging macroeconomic environment. We expect fourth quarter revenue performance to be similar to the third quarter. This represents the weaker end of our prior expectations of low-single digit revenue growth for the year. And given we are at the end of a multiyear product cycle, we now expect the infrastructure to be about a 1 point impact to IBM for the full year. On currency, given the strengthening of the dollar, we now expect currency to be about a 0.5 point headwind to revenue growth in the quarter and about 1 point impact of revenue growth for the year. Now turning to profitability. For the full year, we are raising our expectation for operating pretax margin expansion to about 1 point year-to-year well above our model. The s”