Channel Beat: PC Channel Sales Looking Up

2013 was not the best year for the PC market, but a new study from New York-based research firm, The NPD Group, shows a 25.4 percent jump in sales of PC devices through the channel.

The study shows that 14.4 million desktops, notebooks and tablets were sold through the U.S. commercial channel last year. The increase is largely due to the consumerization of IT within the education and government sectors.

In other news, several major vendors, including Dell and Cisco, are expressing concern over reports that a special unit within the NSA has been planting back doors in new computing and networking hardware from major U.S. vendors. A German news publication reported the story, which says the NSA has regularly intercepted hardware orders to OEMs in order to plant wiretapping bugs and spyware, without the vendors' knowledge.

Finally, the highly anticipated Consumer Electronics Show will kick off in Las Vegas next week, prompting rumors about new gadget and device releases.

Rumors include the releases of several new tablets from Samsung, a new Google Nexus 10 and a mini version of the LG G2.