Network security revenue up 2% in 1Q06

According to Infonetics Research's Network Security Appliance, any customers, while still investing in firewalls, VPNs, IDS/IPS, and gateway AV, are also looking deeper into NAC and content security solutions, which is delaying some core network security purchasing until later in 2006.

"VPN/firewall functionality - the core of most integrated security appliance products - is truly reaching the commodity stage," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst at Infonetics Research. "New silicon vendors are making it possible for manufacturers to build and sell multi-gigabit VPN/firewall appliances for under US$5,000, with that number declining rapidly over the next year. In addition, new security vendors are building Ethernet switches that offer full security on every single port at very affordable prices, driving prices down and making competition fiercer for all integrated security products."

"These statistics apply directly to the burgeoning Middle East market that has witnessed exponential growth in the recent years due to a multitude of dynamics namely heightened security threat awareness and internal efficiency factors," said Antony Chapman, senior director, APAC/MEA at SonicWALL. "Our recent expansion into the Middle East region, beginning with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with Redington Gulf, one of the region's top IT distributors, was precisely to take advantage of this upsurge and provide a full range of security solutions there."

The report tracks integrated security appliances in six price categories, hardware secure routers, SSL VPN gateways, VPN/firewall software, host- and network-based IDS/IPS products, and gateway anti-virus products.

First Quarter 2006 Highlights:

Integrated security appliances and software make up 76% of worldwide network security appliances and software revenue, IDS/IPS 14%, gateway anti-virus 10%; by 2009, gateway anti-virus grows to 14% of the total.
• Cisco remains the revenue leader overall, with 35% of total network security appliances and software; strong router sales helped Cisco increase share this quarter.
• Check Point and Juniper are tied for second at 9%
• ISS, McAfee, Nokia, Nortel, SonicWALL, and Symantec are strong second-tier players, each with between 1% and 7% of the market.
• Infonetics' 1Q06 revenue forecast, made in 4Q05, was within 1% of actual revenue.

Companies tracked: AEP, Array, Avaya, Aventail, Check Point, CipherOptics, Cisco, Citrix, CA, CyberGuard, D-Link, Enterasys, F5, Fortinet, Intel, Juniper, Lucent, McAfee, NETASQ, Netilla, Nokia, Nortel, Secure Computing, SonicWALL, Symantec, TippingPoint, WatchGuard, Whale, ZyXEL, and others.