IBM's stock price dropped 9% after hours as its first-quarter sales growth of 1% to $14.5 billion disappointed investors. IBM's consulting division, it's second-largest, reported flat revenues of $5.2 billion, reflecting a "weak IT spending climate." IBM agreed to acquire HashiCorp, a cloud infrastructure software company, for $6.4 billion. The HashiCorp deal is IBM's largest acquisition since Red Hat in 2019 and is part of CEO Arvind Krishna's strategy to focus on software and services. Analysts said IBM will apply its "Red Hat playbook" to boost HashiCorp's revenue and profit margins by selling through its large customer base.