Computer security industry grows 18.6 percent
Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 14:46 IST   |    2 Comments
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New Delhi: While most business sectors were affected by the slowdown last year, the anti-virus and computer security industry grew 18.6 percent totalling $13.5 billion in revenues, IT market researcher and consultancy Gartner said Monday. According to a report by Gartner, there is an increasing demand for appliance-based products, particularly within certain segments such as e-mail security and secure web gateway markets. The revenue for the security software market in 2007 stood at $11.3 billion. "In 2008, the security market did not show any noticeable impact from the economic downturn. A double-digit growth in a challenging economic climate shows that security remains a key priority for CIOs (chief information officers) and IT security leaders," said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner. The report also noticed a decline in the combined market share of the top five vendors - Symantec, McAfee Trend Micro, IBM and EMC - and attributed it to the growth of smaller players. Their combined market share fell to 49.1 in 2008 from 52 percent the year before. "The combined top five vendors' market share is gradually falling in favour of smaller players, a sign that security remains a dynamic market where smaller players, new entrants and specialist vendors provide an effective challenge to the established leaders," the report said. Symantec, makers of Norton anti-virus software suite, remained the top vendor with a 22 percent market share followed by McAfee and Trend Micro with 10.9 and 7 percent share respectively. IBM came in the fourth place with 5.1 percent market share, while EMC's share is 4 percent. In the report, Gartner has forecast relatively slow growth cycle for the industry in 2009 due to the full impact of the slowdown. Contu said the industry would likely grow around 9 percent this year. New customers, especially in the small and medium businesses, are likely to stimulate sales, he said. "New product delivery methods, such as software as a service (SaaS) and host-based offerings, and expected increasing interest from the small and midsize business (SMB) sector will sustain growth in the market in 2009," Contu added.
Source: IANS
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