Software-as-a-service will remain a bright spot for revenue for the next few years, said market researcher Infonetics Research.
According to Infonetics, the revenue for SaaS content security gateways has increased by more than 50% year-over-year, and is forecast to grow at a 23% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2011 to 2016.
"Any serious player in the content security market who doesn't currently have a SaaS offering is missing out on the fastest growing segment," said Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security at Infonetics Research.
The above findings are based on Infonetics Research's newly released vendor market share standings, trends and analysis from Infonetics' second quarter (2Q12) security report: "Content Security Gateway Appliances, Software, and SaaS."
"Customers are starting to buy and deploy integrated security solutions, including firewalls with mail and gateway antivirus, IPS (intrusion prevention system), DLP (data loss prevention), mobile device security, and application control-instead of standalone solutions-which is driving up the overall network security market but weighing down on sales of standalone content security gateways," Wilson added.
"Security-as-a-service (SaaS) and hosted security services are outgrowing product markets, and until recently, standalone content security product sales were outgrowing integrated appliance sales," he said.
In 2Q12, the global content security gateway market, including appliances and software, sequentially decreased 1.7% to $721 million.