'Demand for IT security is major growth driver for Indian SMBs'

KOLKATA, INDIA: The network security market for India small and medium businesses (SMBs, companies with less than 999 employees) clearly shows a positive growth trend in the immediate future reveals a study conducted by New York-based AMI-Partners.

The soon to be published "2013 India Network Security Appliance Market Landscape" also highlights that SMBs are estimated to have spent nearly $45 million in 2012 on Network Security Appliances including Unified Threat Management (UTM), network firewalls and VPN solutions.

The demand for IT security is the major growth driver in the network security market for India SMBs. Moreover, emerging wireless LAN-based technologies such as 3G, wimax, and Wi-Fi hotspots enhance the need for securing the data residing on these networks, said the report.

"The increase in usage of various forms of broadband facilitating greater usage of business traffic through web and mobile services has augmented the need for network security among India SMBs," said Somnath Das, manager-research at AMI.

"It is also important to mention that larger SMBs are now transmitting more critical applications over their networks for greater availability throughout their organization," he added.

Another key trend is the shift towards convergence; this has led to strong adoption of network security solutions and has also enhanced the security appliances market, the report said.

"A key feature of the UTM market has been its healthy growth rate in the last 3 years remaining unaffected by the uncertain economic climate. It is expected that the India SMB UTM market will continue to gain traction in the next two to three years with double-digit annual growth rates predicted," stated Das.

AMI has gauged India SMB user preferences in network security as a part of its study.

"AMI's study also reveals that India SMBs are likely to be more attracted by a versatile and multi-functional "all-in-one-box" type of security application including features such as end-point security, secure web and mail gateway. These businesses prefer easier and hassle-free management of security devices," said Das.

A key reason that India SMBs prefer this type of technology is their lack of internal IT management infrastructure felt Das and further added, just over a quarter of India SMBs employ a full-time, dedicated internal IT professional.

AMI's soon to be published "2013 India Network Security Appliance Market Landscape" study delivers insights on how SMBs are accepting challenges emerging from greater usage of internet based applications and growing network security issues.