The graphics add-in-board (AIB) market beats seasonal trends in Q1 2018, Jon Peddie Research (JPR) reports-- shipments are up by 6.4% Q-o-Q, with revenues reaching over $5 billion.

AIBs use discrete GPUs, and are found in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, rending and mining farms, and devices such as scientific instruments. They are either bought directly by the customer or factory-installed by OEMs, and make the higher end of the graphics industry with discrete chips and private, often large, high-speed memory (as opposed to integrated GPUs sharing slower system memory).

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), a gathering of 500 companies including big names such as Accenture, AMD, Intel, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Samsung, Shell and UBS, publishes the Ethereum Client Specification 1.0, an enterprise blockchain standard.

The Ethereum Client Specification is “a single, open-source, cross-platform standards-based framework to speed up business transactions, build a greater trust in contracts, and create more efficient business models.” It is based on blockchain components developed by the Ethereum Foundation, the organisation behind the Ether cryptocurrency.

The EEA says the specification is the result of 18 months of collaboration, and will bring about nothing less than "the next decentralised internet era, Web 3.0." Through the specification developers can write code enabling interoperability between businesses and customers, using either a private or public blockchain. It also sets up a framework for setting permission to join a blockchain network.

According to IDC, global IT services and business service revenues total $502 billion in H2 2017-- a 3.6% Y-o-Y increase. Services revenue for full year 2017 total "just shy" of $1 trillion, a 4% increase over 2016.

W. Europe is the 2nd largest global market, even if H2 2017 growth clocks at just 1% Y-o-Y. The emerging CEE and MEA markets are much healthier, showing 7% Y-o-Y growth, even if they remain relatively small. However the size allows a few large IT initiatives to drive up growth, and the fact organisations have fewer IT assets makes adoption of digital services "much easier."

The growth of services revenues slightly outpaces the global GDP growth rate, reflecting a brighter economic outlook, a shared urgency for large-scale digital transformation and, in some segments, new digital services offsetting the commoditisation of traditional services.

CEOs are looking to deepen their understanding of digital business, Gartner reports-- as growth remains the priority of business leaders, the change and upgrading of company structure is the focus of CEOs and senior execs.

The finding comes from a Q4 2017 Gartner survey of 460 CEO and senior business executives from organisations with over $50 million in annual revenue. The analyst looked into the business issues of bosses, as well as "some" areas of technology agenda impact.