10 most valuable global brands

It may have slipped a place but the biggest name in "old tech" has had a pretty good year. Big Blue's shares are not far off their all-time high, and while first-quarter earnings weren't great, the previous quarter beat all expectations.

IBM is still reaping the rewards of selling its PC unit to Lenovo in 2005 and focusing more on software and services such as analytics and cloud computing. The drive to exit low-margin businesses took a knock earlier this month when talks on selling its x86 server business -- again to Lenovo -- broke down over price.

With its vast size and global footprint, investors still tend to view the company's earnings as an indicator of overall corporate technology spending and demand.