Modern social concepts “Industry 4.0” and “Education 4.0” are closely connected to each other. In the era of globalization of all spheres of social and public life implementation of the concept of mass-scale open online education is becoming a most efficient method of promotion of universities in the international market of educational services. New strategic benchmarks in education imply increased accessibility and quality of services provided with the help of modern digital technologies. Development and entrenchment of massive open online courses (MOOC) is to answer this demand. The article deals with analysis of main stages of development of MOOC from 2008 on, justification of modern trends of MOOC development in the world and specific features of these trends in Russia. The authors identify the most successful MOOC providers in Russia: American platform “Coursera” and National Open Education Platform, conduct dynamic analysis of the scope of services provided by these platforms and draw attention to niches available.