Reactive buying fuels content security growth

Safe as houses: Global revenue in Q1 rose 2.2 per cent on the preceding quarter

The content security market posted solid figures in 2009's opening quarter, with sequential worldwide growth of 2.2 per cent, research has found.

The Content Security Appliances and Software report from Infonetics Research claims global sales reached $535.7m (£324m) in Q1. This represents an increase of 2.2 per cent on the preceding quarter. Infonetics claimed virtualisation and cloud computing were key growth drivers.

McAfee was the world's leading vendor by revenue, followed by Websense. Blue Coat and Symantec tied in third place. Infonetics claimed Cisco's overall security revenue declined by a fifth last quarter but its content security sales enjoyed an eight per cent spike.

Jeff Wilson, Infonetics' principal analyst for network security, claimed end users' lack of foresight helped fuel spending on content security gear. "The main reason the content security market is faring well is reactive buying," he said. "Most vendors confirm that many customers make investments in content security as needed due to problems in the network.

"In many cases, this lack of planning makes it impossible to stop spending on content security. Other factors driving growth in content security include the increasing popularity of cloud-based services and software-as-a-service and the need to comply with government security regulations.”