RALEIGH IBM is scheduled to announced its latest quarterly earnings today after the markets close and a big question to be answered is: Will Raleigh-based Red Hat deliver another bottom-line boost even in the times of the COVID-19 crisis?

Last quarter which occurred as IBM (NYSE: IBM) was closing on the $34 billion acquistion of Red Hat the Hatters sales helped since its own sales surged 24 percent and cloud sales climbed 21 percent.

Wall Street financial firm Zacks Research notes that new CEO Arvind Krishna he took over April 6 is putting more emphasis on cloud as well as emerging tech sectors such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. (IBM works closely with NC State on quantum research.)

IBMs new CEO spells out priorities, especially cloud, and makes exec changes as he takes over

Last quarter, IBM surprised Wall Street with Q4 revenue growth, after five straight periods of declining sales. More specifically, Red Hat revenue jumped 24%, with total cloud revenue up 21%. Despite this solid expansion from vital growth units, IBMs overall quarterly sales only climbed 0.1%, Zacks reports.

And the coronavirus could hurt sales since it emerged as a pandemic.

Our Zacks estimates call for IBMs Q1 sales to slip 1.2% from the year-ago period to $17.97 billion, Zacks says.

Meanwhile, its adjusted quarterly earnings are projected to fall by 24.4% to hit $1.70 a share. Peeking ahead, IBMs adjusted fiscal 2020 EPS figure is expected to slip 4.8%, on 2.6% lower revenue.

On top of that, the historic tech giants consensus Q1 earnings estimate has slipped nearly 13% in the last 60 days.

IBM employs thousands of people across North Carolina, including Red Hat and one of Big Blues largest corporate campuses in RTP.

Read more online.

Red Hat names longtime exec Paul Cormier as CEO, replacing Jim Whitehurst

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Can Red Hat give IBM another boost in earnings? We'll find out soon - WRAL Tech Wire