Analysts predict the collapse of social networks and a shift to the cloud.

Experts from the analytics firm Gartner have presented their forecast for the development of the IT sector for 2012-2016. These trends, according to the experts, will have the greatest impact on the global economy, businesses, and users.

The report's authors identified one of the trends as the increasing volume of digital data that businesses can analyze. However, experts believe that these volumes of data (called "big data") will prove overwhelming for many companies. Only a select few will be able to work with and manage "big data."

Analysts cite the widespread use of cloud computing as one of the most important trends. Experts predict that by the end of 2016, more than 50% of the world's largest companies will store important information in the cloud. Cloud services will most often be offered to companies by providers, who, in turn, will store this data in dedicated data centers.

In the coming years, traditional PC applications will also lose popularity, replaced by mobile apps. Analysts predict that in just four years, only one out of every five software products created will be for PCs, while the rest will be for mobile devices.

This is due to the fact that in the next four years, more than 90% of new devices purchased by users will be smartphones and tablets.

Analysts also predict the collapse of the investment bubble associated with the social services boom in 2013-2014. However, market leaders—Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google, and VMware—having joined the development of social technologies, are still managing to establish a foothold in this segment.

Equally important, according to experts, will be the boom in cybercrime, with damages expected to increase by 10% annually. Incidentally, the development of cloud services will contribute to this negative phenomenon.