Gartner's forecasts for 2013. - At the end of 2012, Gartner Consultancy published its annual forecasts for the IT sector in 2013. These forecasts will help Chief executives to plan corporate developments in the context of the continued economic crisis and technological changes. The following technological developments are expected to have the biggest impact on the IT sector in 2013: 1) as far as 2015, 90% of companies will bypass broad-scale deployment of Windows 8, awaiting a more mature and more stable system. Full-scale shift to Windows 8 could take 10 years; 2) by the end of 2014, three of the five biggest suppliers of mobile handset vendors will be from China, most notably Huawei and ZTE; 3) by 2015, “bigdata” demand will reach 4.4 million jobs but only a third will be filled due to a skills shortage in decision-making departments and data analysis; 4) by 2014, the majority of recruitment in Europe by companies based in Asia (mainly China and India) which are enjoying double-digit growth and which will be responsible for major hiring of IT professionals. At the same time, European states are expected to adopt European directives by then, which will protect local jobs and penalise offshore companies, reducing their number by 20% by 2016; 5) by 2017, 40% of corporate contacts [CRM, (Customer Relationship Management), annuals, etc.] will have been copied onto Facebook or into mobile collaborative applications on smart phones, without the knowledge of companies and politicians (data loss); 6) by 2014, employee-owned equipment (BYOD - “Bring your own device”) will have virus and malware infection rates that are twice as high as corporately controlled machines; 7) up until 2014, development requirements of new software used in more intelligent machines (vending machines, medical devices, etc.) will increase by 25%; 8) by 2015, 40% of Global 1000 companies will use gamification (the transfer of game mechanisms to other domains, particularly websites) as the main means of transforming business operations; 9) by 2016, wearable smart electronics (in shoes, tattoos, spectacles and other accessories) will emerge as a $10 billion industry; 10) consolidation of the IT market will continue: by 2014, 20% of the top 100 IT companies will have disappeared. (IL/transl.fl)