Infotech Lead America: IBM said Virginia M. Rometty will be the chairman of the board, effective October 1, 2012.

Rometty succeeds Samuel J. Palmisano, who is stepping down from the board effective October 1, 2012.
Palmisano will become Senior Adviser to the company until he retires on December 1, 2012.
As of October 1, 2012, Mrs. Rometty’s title will be IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer.
Rometty succeeded Mr. Palmisano as IBM’s ninth CEO in January of this year, after holding senior leadership positions in IBM’s services, sales, strategy and marketing units.
Rometty led the successful integration of PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting — the largest acquisition in professional services history, building a team of more than 100,000 business consultants and services experts. She became a director of IBM in January.
Recently, IBM said its second-quarter net income was $3.9 billion compared with $3.7 billion in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of 6 percent.
Total revenues for the second quarter of 2012 of $25.8 billion were down 3 percent from the second quarter of 2011.