Business leaders - how this week's news will affect you

The week in IT has been full of announcements, departures and launches - but how will it affect the CIO?

Top execs leave Microsoft, AMD and Capita Enterprises can expect to see shifts in strategies from some big hitters as Microsoft, AMD and Capita all saw top executives step down from their positions this week. Microsoft's server and tools business will see changes as president of the group Robert Muglia was relieved by CEO Steve Ballmer.

At AMD, CEO Dirk Meyer handed in his resignation, and strategy changes are likely particularly with competitors being so busy in recent weeks, with Intel acquiring McAfee, ARM joining forces with Microsoft and even IBM and Samsung developing their own chips for gadgets.

And customers of business process outsourcing company Capita might be interested to know that it too has appointed two joint chief operating officers; a move that will see current COO Simon Piling step down.

Worldwide PC shipments bounce back but competition from gadgets growing
The IT industry is recovering from recent hard times as research firm Gartner revealed that the total number of PC shipments worldwide reached 93.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010, marking a 3.1 per cent increase on the same period in 2009.

And desktop PCs are looking increasingly beleagured, with growing competition from mobile handsets and tablets resulting in PC shipments that came in well below Gartner's forecast. The company expected to see 4.8 per cent growth during this quarter.

2010 bumper year for fraudsters, according to KPMG
And the calls for CIOs and security heads to maintain tighter control over their data are as loud as ever, as it seems as the industry is losing the war against cyber crime. According to KMPG's fraud study released this week public-sector fraud totalling £571m in 2010 was up nearly 20 per cent on the previous year.

"You need to have an overall fraud strategy. That means making detection of white-collar crime part of your risk analysis and, even then, detection of this sort is only one strand in the overall strategy," Hitesh Patel, a forensic partner at KPMG told Computing.