In his monthly Newsletter on Annual Reports, Sid Cato dramatized the IBM report by quoting at length from the shareholder letter—begun on the report cover—from outgoing CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.

Accompanying part of the message are these words, in various large fonts:

Flawless/As good as they come/Most sophisticated, yet down-to-earth/Moving/Substantive; eschewed bells & whistles/Superlatives abound.

Cato said he was issuing a combined March-April issue "because of tardiness, to an unmatched degree, of 2001 annual reports to shareholders."