Gartner: Security Software Market To Grow 11 Percent This Year

A bit of good news in an otherwise difficult economy: Worldwide security software revenue will jump from $14.8 billion last year to $16.5 billion this year -- an 11 percent increase, according to new Gartner forecasts.

This after revenue slowed to 7 percent overall growth last year. Garter says the consumer side holds the lion's share of revenue and will grow to $4.2 billion this year, up from $3.9 billion last year. The enterprise side of the market will hit $3 billion this year, up from $2.9 billion last year. Gartner points to compliance and the pressure to keep up with the changing threat landscape as stimulants for the security software sector.

"Most segments of the security software market will continue to grow over the next few years, although a significant degree of variation is expected between the more-established and less-mature technologies," said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "Overall, security will remain one of the fastest-growing areas within the enterprise software market."

Gartner's Contu says security vendors with a mix of channel, new license, and maintenance offerings, as well as software-as-a-service, open source, and outsourcing options, will fare well. "Shrinking discretionary spending budgets have heightened competition for new maintenance and license revenue streams and placed a renewed emphasis on vendor performance and viability," he said.

Enterprises are looking at vendor performance and viability, as well as new maintenance and licensing options, as their discretionary budgets have fallen, so these are areas where vendors can shine, according to Contu.

Among the hot security software products in demand this year will be suite-based options in enterprise endpoint security, identity and access management, and Web security, according to Gartner. Identity and enterprise management comprises about 8 percent of enterprise security budgets to date. Gartner says that segment overall will grow to more than $12 billion by 2014.

A copy of the full Gartner report, "Forecast Analysis: Security Software Markets, Worldwide, 2009-2014, 2Q10 Update," is available for download here.

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