PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Five for Friday is a weekly feature to give a brief roundup of our top five stories from the week that you might have missed. Think we left anything out? Let us know your favourite stories of the week by pinging us a tweet @pcr_online.
Windows 10 only OS safe from WannaCry
Windows 10 is the only operating system completely safe from the WannaCry ransomware, according to Microsoft. Claiming more than 200,000 victims in around 150 countries, the WannaCry virus has brought chaos to public and private organisations – including the NHS – during the past two weeks. Blocking systems and files until a ransom was paid, the ransomeware deleted files within days if users refused to pay up.
A statement from Microsoft president Brad Smith said: "As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, there is simply no way for customers to protect themselves against threats unless they update their systems." Smith also called on governments to ‘wake up’ to the threat of cyber security, saying the issue is not being taken seriously enough.
A week of Channel moves
Terra Computer Limited this week announced the arrival of two new members of its team: senior business development manager Alicia Shepherd, and business development manager Colin Morris. Both join from Entatech where they were the firm’s sales director and sales account manager respectively.
Elsewhere on Thursday Exertis announced the appointment Richard Ferguson as head of commercial for Exertis Mobile. Ferguson previously spent three years at mobile distributor Brightstar as vice president OEM EMEA.
Online retailers to provide for 40% of world by 2021
The number of consumers shopping online is set for a big rise over the next five years. Digital commerce services are expected to reach 3 billion people by 2021 – that is 40 per cent of the world’s population, compared to 32 per cent this year, according to Juniper Research.
The group’s latest study, Digital Commerce: Key Trends, Sectors & Forecasts 2017-2021, predicted that remote payment for goods would be the biggest growth factor, with digital banking and bill payments the second most profitable.
Intel pushes its Thunderbolt 3.0 USB port by giving it away
Intel is pushing its Thunderbolt 3.0 USB port as the next, well, USB port. The tech giant wants its Thunderbolt 3.0 USB to become the defacto input mode for all future PCs. In order to do this, the firm is effectively giving it away by doing away with exclusive licencing deals.
Chipzilla has already come out in support of the plan to make the next-generation input port the new USB. "Intel’s vision for Thunderbolt was not just to make a faster computer port, but a simpler and more versatile port available to everyone. We envision a future where high-performance single-cable docks, stunning photos and 4K video, lifelike VR, and faster-than-ever storage are commonplace," said Intel Client Computing group VP Chris Walker. "A world where one USB-C connector does it all – today, and for many years to come."
AMD RX Vega release slips into July
After much speculation as to how AMD would follow on from the momentum of Ryzen, the company last week announced the impressively specced Radeon Vega Frontier Edition. Somewhat disappointingly, the gaming-oriented RX Vega didn’t make an appearance at the launch event. Now, according to Kitguru, the reason for that is that the new card won’t be launching until after the Frontier Edition is released.
Speaking at the 45th annual J.P Morgan GlobalTechnology, Media and Telecom Conference, AMD’s CEO Lisa Su explained that the company would be ‘launching Vega across all of the market segments over the next couple of months’.
