What happened Shares of IBM (NYSE: IBM) fell 9.9% on Friday, following the release of the tech giant's fourth-quarter results. So what IBM's revenue declined by 6% year over year to $20.4 billion. That was slightly below the nearly $20.7 billion Wall Street had expected. IBM is streamlining its business to focus more on its cloud operations. However, the shift isn't progressing as well as many analysts anticipated. IBM's total cloud revenue rose only 10% to $7.5 billion, while competitors such as Amazon and Microsoft are projected to deliver much more impressive cloud growth in their upcoming earnings reports. IBM's stock fell sharply on Friday. Image source: Getty Images. Moreover, IBM's adjusted operating earnings fell 56% to $2.07, largely due to a $2 billion pre-tax charge related to its restructuring efforts. The company did, however, continue to crank out cash. IBM's 2020 full-year free cash flow checked in at $10.8 billion. Now what IBM CEO Arvind Krishna is asking investors to remain patient as IBM executes its turnaround strategy, but the company's lackluster cloud growth is making it more difficult for shareholders to remain optimistic. Many decided to sell their shares on Friday rather than continue to wait for IBM's growth to rebound. 10 stocks we like better than IBMWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and IBM wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of November 20, 2020 John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten, an employee of LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Microsoft and recommends the following options: long January 2022 $1920 calls on Amazon and short January 2022 $1940 calls on Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source