The software security market is preparing for a boom as demand for Malware protection increases.
Gartner analyst Ruggero Contu said Asia Pacific security software revenue is forecast to reach US$1.52 billion in 2010; an increase of 20.6 percent over 2009, with worldwide revenue set to surpass US$16.5 billion in 2010; an 11.3 per cent increase from 2009.
“Overall, security will remain one of the fastest-growing areas within the enterprise software market," Contu said.
“Shrinking discretionary spending budgets have heightened competition for new maintenance and license revenue streams and placed a renewed emphasis on vendor performance and viability.”
Matthew Cheung, senior analyst at Gartner, said the market will continue to benefit from demand associated with compliance requirements.
“During the next six to 12 months, products delivered as SaaS and appliances will continue overtaking traditional software licensing as the preferred purchasing methods. Delivery as a suite in sub segments such as enterprise endpoint security, identity and access management (IAM), and Web security will be the most prevalent product delivery types,” he said.
Cheung said an increased sophistication in malware will continue to push investment in the IAM market.
“The growing sophistication of the threat landscape, where malware composed of multiple components can be installed after the initial infection and the exploits of socially engineered trojans, which trick end users into downloading and executing malicious files, will push organisations and consumers to invest in endpoint security products in coming years," he said.
The news comes as the first reports of mobile malware on Android operating systems emerged last week.