Borrowing $ at low rates
IBM must be borrowing a lot of cash to fund the acquisition. At last count it had about $12B in the bank... https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ibm/financials/balance-sheet.
Unlike everyone else - https://www.thestreet.com/story/14513643/1/apple-microsoft-google-are-sitting-on-crazy-amounts-of-cash.html