EGHAM, UK: Worldwide security software revenue market totalled $10.4 billion in 2007, an increase of 19.8 percent from 2006 revenue of $8.7 billion, according to Gartner Inc. Analysts said there is an increasing shift toward offering appliance based products, particularly within certain segments such as e-mail security and secure Web gateway markets.

"In 2007, the security market did not experience any noticeable signs of a slowdown as it showed a double digit growth," said Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner. "Compliance, data leakage and privacy issues, along with the need to tackle the fast evolving and sophisticated threat environment, are among the major drivers fuelling the growth of spending on security."

In 2007, Symantec and McAfee remained the leading players holding 26.6 percent and 11.8 percent market share respectively (see Table 1). EMC more than tripled its revenue year-on-year and saw its performance primarily influenced as a result of acquisitions. In addition, Microsoft's entry into the consumer security protection market will further erode pricing in this segment which eventually will trickle into the professional market, starting with the small office/home office (SOHO), and consequently moving into the SMB market.

The segments that bolstered security software growth were e-mail security boundary appliance and security information and event management (SIEM) with 45.4 percent and 32.1 percent increases in 2007, respectively. "Compliance is the primary driver for the adoption of SIEM tools, at the same time they are also adopted to tackle the increasing threats from targeted attacks and fraud," Contu said. "In addition, the liability that spam and malware have on corporate systems is among the key issues driving spending on e-mail security boundary tools."

Enterprise antivirus and web access management (WAM) were the slowest performing segments. Enterprise antivirus is gradually decreasing as a stand alone purchase in favour of broader endpoint security platforms, where antivirus is only one of the required components. Despite being a mature technology widely deployed by organisations WAM grew at a double digit rate of 12.7 percent.

From a region perspective, Latin America was the fastest region that grew at a rate of more than 40 percent in 2007. It was followed by the Middle East and Africa and Asia/Pacific regions which increased 35 percent and 27 percent, respectively. North America and Western Europe continued to lead the market with market shares of 47.5 percent and 31.7 percent respectively.

"Prioritisation, selection and maintenance of technology continues to be a major issue for organisations because of pressure from government agencies and industry standards to demonstrate compliance with the spirit and the letter of the law under various regulatory requirements. They also need to show business value and cost-effectiveness for security measures," concluded Contu. "Price competition among vendors is also bringing prices down in the more-mature stand-alone market segments, such as antivirus. Changes in the way vendors package and price their solutions in the future will ultimately impact pricing and make some security technologies as pervasive as PCs."