New research out from market analysis firm Infonetics
Research showed that in spite of a stagnant economy, managed security services
are experiencing a brisk rate of growth with no signs of letting up through the
next few years.
In 2011, Infonetics believes that the managed security
market will reach 13 percent growth. By 2015, Infonetics believes the market
will reach $16.8 billion.
"Despite the global economic meltdown that started
in mid-2008, the security services market is strong and growing, with demand
driven by the proliferation of security threats, growth in the use of mobile
devices, and the shift to the cloud," says Jeff Wilson, principal analyst
for security at Infonetics Research.
Wilson says the strongest growth will come from the SaaS
segment of the market, which he predicts will double between this year and 2015
as companies use this more flexible delivery model to keep up to date with
swift changes in the threat environment that can lead to rapid obsolescence of
security equipment.
SaaS also enables better means of protecting a
geographically diverse user base accessing corporate data and applications from
an increasing number of devices, Infonetics says. The firm predicts that by
2015, cloud-based services and SaaS will make up 46 percent of the managed
services market, compared to 38 percent in 2011.
Infonetics also believes that small and medium businesses
will be the driving factor behind managed services growth in the coming years. By
2011, small organization spend on managed services will grow to make up a
quarter of the global market, the firm predicts. It only follows, considering
that these businesses are experiencing some of the worst fallout from automated
attacks on the web but are least prepared to invest in costly security
infrastructure.
"It's often cheaper for companies to hire a service
provider to manage their security than to do it themselves, and with the
growing complexity of security solutions, this outsourcing trend will
continue," Wilson says.
Managed Services 
