Security appliance sales boom in Europe

During the fourth quarter of 2003, the IT research firm says that security appliance sales for the region topped the 63,000 mark.

Quarter on quarter figures from IDC show that unit sales were up 47.2 per cent during the fourth quarter, whilst revenues were up 36.0 per cent.

IDC attributes the growth to a surge in sales of firewall/VPN appliances, which account for most of the sales, although it cautions that there are already signs that VPN/firewall sales are starting to slow down.

On top of this, IDC says that, whilst intrusion detection appliances continued to show good growth over the year, quarter-on-quarter growth slowed slightly in the fourth quarter to 23.5 per cent.

www.idc.com