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There is something very different about the latest $1 billion IBM is throwing at cloud computing. This sum says as much about the way the cloud is changing IBM as it says about the way IBM is pursuing the business of renting software and computing power over the Internet.

And yes, the effects on the company almost certainly include layoffs somewhere down the line.

IBM said on Monday that it is committing $1 billion to new cloud capabilities, including putting its portfolio of business software into the cloud, not just selling it in separate packages to individual businesses. It is one of the most significant moves IBM has yet made in cloud computing, and shows the resolve of Virginia Rometty, chief executive of IBM, to remake her company for a world of cloud computing, sensors and mobile technology.

That amounts to reworking how IBM sells software, which is arguably the life of the company. Software is not just IBM’s second-largest business, bringing in $25.9 billion of the company’s $99.8 billion in 2013 revenue. It draws much of the rest of the company’s services business, which makes up the rest of its corporate revenue. (Computer systems and technology are just $14.4 billion, a number that is going to shrink now that IBM has sold off most of its computer server business.)

Software is also by far the most profitable part of IBM, with gross margins of 88.8 percent last year, compared with 48.6 percent for IBM overall.

If IBM is playing with this, something quite big must be going on in the world. The fact that its stock is down 9 percent over the past year, while the overall market is up 15 percent, probably adds to Ms. Rometty’s urgency.

The cloud enables software to move and change faster than it used to. Monday’s announcement included new ways that outside software developers can build on IBM software via the cloud, using both its own work and open source and third-party software.

IBM’s extensive amount of “middleware” software, which enables end-user applications to interact with larger systems, will also be accessible through IBM’s cloud. That should make it easier for companies to mesh their data and applications from their privately owned clouds with IBM’s bigger “public” cloud, a term for clouds used by many different customers.

Another effect is that IBM is looking critically at how its existing operations will be affected by the move to cloud computing. In the past seven months IBM has spent $2 billion on a cloud company called SoftLayer, and announced plans to spend $1.2 billion this year to build up a global cloud of computing centers. This $1 billion, however, will mostly come from internal changes, or what Robert LeBlanc, senior vice president of software and cloud solutions at IBM, called “shifted resources.”

“The model is different in the cloud, it’s a little more self-service,” he said. “I don’t need as much SGA.” SGA stands for sales, administrative and general business costs, and essentially refers to people and the things spent on supporting them. In other words, IBM’s head count could shrink.

Mr. LeBlanc did not comment on any potential layoffs, but noted that, as cloud-based software is generally cheaper, “margins will shift, but margins can be attractive.” Particularly if there are fewer human costs.

IBM will continue to work with Pivotal Software, a cloud software development company founded by EMC, a data storage company. “We built this on top of Cloud Foundry,” an open source system of software for creating cloud-based services, Mr. LeBlanc said. “This goes back several years, and accelerated with the purchase of SoftLayer.”

IBM’s next challenge, he said, would be educating outside developers about what IBM wants them to work with, and the workings of the new computing environment, a break from the old that Mr. LeBlanc said was as big as the move from standalone computers to the Web.

He is not wasting any time. The latest IBM announcement was made on the eve of a conference for cloud computing in Las Vegas that was expected to draw 9,000 people.