Someday, IBM will rename itself “Watson.”

Well, not really. Not likely.

But as Chair and CEO Ginni Rometty steps up her transformation of Big Blue away from tradition hardware and services, cognitive computing built around supercomputing Watson is becoming even more crucial. And look for IBM to keep buying companies as part of that transformation drive, CFO Martin Schroeter predicted recently, using the term “acquisitive.”

At a conference Tuesday, Rometty predicted a world “rewritten in software.” IBM, she said, will lead the way.

And at its core, IBM (NYSE: IBM) is rebuilding itself under Rometty as “a cognitive solutions and cloud platform company.” She used a term that her CFO stressed in IBM’s most recent earnings call.

Cognitive is the emerging pillar of four that Rometty is stressing, the others being big data/analytics, the cloud and mobile solutions.

“The cognitive era stands to be the most disruptive, but it will be the most differentiating,” she told IBM partners, according to CRN. “Like digital today, the world will embrace cognitive tomorrow. Without it, we’ll be overwhelmed by data, and won’t stand a chance to solve some of the big problems out there.”

However, the jury (Wall Street, customers and potential customers) remains undecided if Rometty is leading IBM out of 15 consecutive revenue-losing quarters.

“Acquisitive”

In a conference call a month ago to discuss the latest earnings, CFO Martin Schroeter made clear IBM’s cognitive commitment as well as its drive to acquire more companies.

“[F]irst, and I think we have been clear about this. We manage our business for the long-term. And in 2015, we made a lot of progress, a lot of very good progress in transforming the IBM company,” Schroeter told analysts.

“You see this not only in the growth rate in the strategic imperatives, but importantly you see it in the big steps we’ve taken to address some of these new opportunities. We had an opportunity last year to invest quite a bit of capital. We bought 14 companies.

“We will continue to be acquisitive.”

Noting earlier that IBM had recorded $18 billion in analytics revenue, the CFO touted achievements in segments Rometty has stressed:

“Together, cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security grew 26% and delivered $29 billion in revenue. As I mentioned they now represent 35% of IBM, which is up from 22% two years ago.”

And Schroeter says IBM won’t let up on its transformation commitment.

“So with the returns we’re seeing on our investments, we are more and more encouraged that the strategy is right and that we’re executing to transform IBM,” he declared.

“In 2016, we’ll have our Investor Day in February. We’re going to talk more about both the transformation of IBM. We’re going to talk about how we present their information to the financial community to help understand IBM, particularly as we emerge as a cognitive solutions and Cloud platform company. I think it’s very important to understand what IBM is emerging as and again we’ll talk about that in our Investor Day.”

Bitcoin, too – and acquisition spree

The pace of change continues at fast speed.

News releases this week reflect how IBM is pursuing emerging trends to drive more revenue.

On bitcoin:

  • IBM and Japan’s Largest Stock Exchange to Test Blockchain For Trading Environments
  • IBM Delivers Blockchain-As-A-Service for Developers; Commits to Making Blockchain Ready for Business

And more secure clouds:

  • IBM Unveils New Mainframe for Encrypted Hybrid Clouds

Already this year “acquisitive” IBM has acquired three digital marketing agencies to beef up its “IBM Interactive Experience” efforts.

The embrace of the Internet of Things has triggered the formation of a 2,500-member team following the close of the Weather.com acquisition.

It also recently formed a new cloud video unit formed around the Ustream acquisition.

Shots at competitors

As CRN’s Joseph Tsidulko noted, Rometty felt confident enough in her strategy to take shots at competitors Dell and EMC, which are merging, and HP, which divided.

“You see two of them coming together on yesterday’s business model, and you see another one breaking up on yesterday’s business model,” he said.

So which of the three companies have the right strategy?

If Watson knows, he isn’t telling.

Yet.