InfoWorld — What is 2012 likely to bring to the tech industry and its users? IDG -- the publisher of InfoWorld, Computerworld, Network World, CIO, CSO, ITworld, PC World, Macworld, and other tech publications throughout the globe -- surveyed its editors to gaze into their crystal balls and predict a key trend or development for 2012, as well as select their key story for 2011. The death of Apple CEO Steve Jobs and the rise of social media as a tool of protest topped a diverse roundup of nominees.

Here are the editors' individual preductions for 2012 and their pick for 2011's top story, in no particular order.

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Simon Jary, publishing director, IDG U.K.

Most significant story of 2011: Tech patent wars. Although public patent disputes used to be the preserve of small-time patent trolls, 2011 has seen all the major players in the mobile sector go to war with each other in the courts, suing and countersuing, slinging mud, and attempting to rub out competitive products through the courts. It's ugly and will end up costing the consumer and likely hindering innovation from newcomers.

2012 crystal ball: More blurring of the lines between laptops, tablets and smartphones, and between consumer and enterprise tech. Apple will lose more of its nice-guy sheen, even though its new boss isn't as aggressively vindictive as the last.

Maryfran Johnson, editor-in-chief, CIO Magazine and Events

Most significant story of 2011: Mobility, without question. Whether it's the influx of consumer devices into the enterprise or the development of mobile apps to do innovative things for their businesses, CIOs are all about mobile these days. When you look at the big 5 IT trends that have dominated this past year (mobile, social, consumerization, cloud, and big data), just about all of them hook into the mobility drive from one aspect or another.

2012 crystal ball: Ever greater attention to big data and how companies can use analytics tools to mine the data for customer insights, business opportunities, or cost savings.

Bob Brown, online executive news editor, Network World

Most significant story of 2011: In the interest of choosing a development that's less mainstream but in the sweet spot for Network World's audience, I'm going with the emergence of OpenFlow. The big Interop 2011 show could almost have been called the OpenFlow show given that it served as one of the first significant exhibitions of OpenFlow switches and controllers, including those shown off in a lab at the event. The software-defined networking technology is designed to enable users to define flows and determine what paths those flows take through a network, regardless of the underlying hardware. OpenFlow stems from an open source project borne of a six-year research collaboration between the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University. OpenFlow has momentum but is far from a sure thing or the only game in town, with heavy hitters such as Cisco still weighing their options.

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