Security spending remained a priority for organisations in 2005, and the industry will continue to experience strong growth for the next few years, as compliance and government regulations continue to play a significant role in security spending decisions, says Nicole Latimer-Livingston, principal research analyst at Gartner.
 
Currently, the major technology trend is moving in the direction of endpoint security suites of products. The market for individual desktop security products is converging, and the market opportunity for stand-alone, signature-based anti-virus products, stand-alone anti-spyware products and stand-alone personal firewalls is limited. Because of the changing threat landscape, security software vendors will need to include more functionality at a more competitive price, she adds.
 
Symantec continued to lead the security software market in 2005, as its market share totalled 32,2% of worldwide revenue. Symantec continued to be the dominant vendor in the anti-virus segment, as its sales accounted for 53,6% of the market.
 
The fastest growth segment within the security software market was the e-mail security boundary market. This segment grew by 34,2% in 2005, as revenue totalled $393,9m in 2005. The market accounted for 7,1% of the total security software industry.
 
The e-mail security boundary market is volatile, both from a technology and a business operations perspective, Latimer-Livingston says. E-mail security will continue to require best-of-breed investments, and companies should consider that this market is poised for further consolidation.
 
An increasing need for customers to meet compliance requirements, as well as a continued need for near-real-time awareness of external and internal threats, is driving the security information and event management (SIEM) market. The SIEM software market grew by more than 29% in 2005 to more than $281m.
 
Compliance is also driving growth in the user provisioning market. This segment grew by 19,7% in 2005, with revenue of $753,3m. Regulatory compliance was the number one driver for a user provisioning implementation in the past 18 months, and it will continue to be for the next 24 to 36 months, Latimer-Livingston says. The needs to reduce administration costs and make operations more efficient are the next two drivers.