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Canalys: Demand for Security as a Service increasing
An analysis of Q1 from the research house has indicated that hosted offerings are growing at much faster rate than traditional hardware and software sales
Demand for Security as a Service continues to increase with that model of delivering applications to customers gaining more ground in Q1.
The latest analysis of the worldwide cyber security market from Canalys has found that solutions for public cloud and as a Service increased by 46% year-on-year.
The cloud and managed services approach now commands 17.6% of the security market, a climb from 13.8% in Q1 2018.
Traditional hardware and software stills dominates, with three quarters of the market, but the growth rate, at 8%, is much slower than the hosted alternatives.
The last 18 months has seen a huge effort by vendors to step up the support for both general managed service providers and those specialising in security as a service. It would be a challenge to find a vendor or distributor that does not have an MSSP programme.
“Investment in cybersecurity shows no sign of slowing down as it remains a priority for all organizations. The security industry will be immune to the increasingly challenging macro-economic and political environment,” said Canalys principal analyst Matthew Ball.
“Recent high-profile ransomware attacks have resulted in organizations paying large sums to regain access to critical IT systems and data. Strengthening security strategies across devices, infrastructure, perimeters and applications will continue to be critical. Increasing employee training and gaining more comprehensive cyber security insurance will also be important to counter these threats," he added.
In terms of vendor rankings the top five globally are Cisco, Palo Alto, Symantec, Check Point and Fortinet but there are plenty of other players jostling for the other places and keen to take market share off bigger rivals.
Anyone who attended InfoSec last month will have seen the large number of vendors in the market and the numerous choices that resellers and customers have to weigh up. Canalys indicated that it does not believe that situation is sustainable.
“It will remain difficult for vendors to grow market share without significant investment or acquisitions, due to the current number of vendors active and increasing levels of competition,” said Canalys research analyst Claudio Stahnke.
“As new threats appear, more startups will emerge, adding to an already crowded market. Differentiation will be key, but also offering customers a choice of deployment and simplified licensing will be vital," he added.
