Impressive growth keeps IT sec on the up

According to a report from analyst company IDC's Western European Quarterly Security Server Appliance Tracker unified threat management (UTM) is the sector's leading light.

"The growing demand for UTM security appliances showed no signs of relenting during the first quarter," said Oliver Harcourt, senior research analyst for IDC's European Enterprise Server research team.

"During this period, growth of UTM security appliances was also helped by vendors that in the past were classed as firewall/VPN security appliance vendors, becoming UTM security appliance vendors following the integration of additional security features on their platforms," Harcourt argued. "The number of vendors with UTM products will continue to increase as vendors look to exploit the strong growth opportunities this market represents."

Cisco was again confirmed as market leader in both unit and revenue terms, whereas Fortinet exhibited the strongest revenue growth.

Earlier this month SC reported Trend Micro acquired IP filtering compnay Kelkea, the latest in a long line of purchases in 2005 that highlight growth in the secure information security sector.

www.idc.com