IDC: Channel key to success for security vendors in A/NZ

According to Patrik Bihammar, senior analyst for security solutions A/NZ for IDC, the channel is crucial to the security vendor community. in the local market.

“It is at the frontline of understanding customer needs and they often own the customer relationship. This is particularly true in the SMB market as the majority of SMBs are managed indirectly through partners,” he said.

In the study entitled ‘Australia and New Zealand Security Channel Review 2007’, IDC revealed the importance of SMBs in the channel as they constitute a major part of the economic fabric in A/NZ. The research recommended vendors build strong and sustainable partner strategies and relationships to gain and also maintain market share.

“An effective partner strategy is critical for security vendors to be successful in maintaining and growing market share,” added Bihammar.
Government Insights, an IDC company, has released a new study, ‘A Government Perspective of the Worldwide Top 10 IT Security Vendors’. Research revealed that more holistic approaches to implementing and securing an organisation’s IT infrastructure and operations will mean that approaches like CA’s Enterprise IT Management (EITM) or Cisco’s Self-Defending Network should have appeal to government CIOs and IT managers.

“Government IT security budgets may be growing but the threats from hackers, malware, bots, phishing, and other attacks are growing even faster and more sophisticated. On the other hand, government IT security managers have an abundance of choices among security solutions and vendors to enable them to defend against those threats,” said Mark Kagan, research manager, Government Insights and report author.

Government Insights is also tracking the government’s adoption of IPv6, which provides added network-layer security and automatic configuration options for certain types of network connectivity. According to the study the most influential players that the U.S. federal government is working with today as it ramps up its IPv6 transition efforts include Check Point, Cisco, IBM and Juniper Networks, that are rising to the top in both security and the move to IPv6.

“IPv6 migration and implementation will be a long-term challenge for federal agencies,” says Shawn P. McCarthy, research director, Government Vendor Programs at Government Insights. “Understanding who the major players are in the government IPv6 market, how they are influencing the Internet Protocol, and how agencies can leverage that expertise to improve their IPv6 networks can help smooth that transition.”

The data can be useful to government security technology buyers as it highlights the multiple ways in which these vendors can sell their security products into the government market. Government Insights claimed buyers should pay careful attention to the companies with which these vendors partner on government contracts.
According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Managed Security Services Study, the managed security services market will significantly outperform the overall ICT outsourcing and managed services market. It is expected to exceed US$604 million in 2008, representing a 20.4 percent increase over 2007; and reach US$1.1 billion in 2012, with a five-year CAGR of 17.1 percent.

“Enterprises can no longer ignore security spending given the increasingly sophisticated and rapidly evolving security threats,” said Adrian Dominic Ho, research manager, Asia Pacific Managed Services and Enterprises Networks at IDC.

“Today, managed security services are no longer simply about firewalls and anti viruses. Enterprises are looking for crisis management, disaster recovery and business continuity services to ensure 24/7 uptime of their business in the event of a significant business disruption. For service providers, this will be the ultimate cash cow. The managed security market has written itself a new chapter.”

He added that creating and executing a business continuity plan to respond to any form of crisis is a very costly endeavour and not many enterprises will be able to afford it.

“The million dollar question is can enterprises survive a public scrutiny when there is a severe disruption to their business?”

In the APEJ region, IDC expects managed security adoption to be strongest in mature services markets like Australia, Hong Kong, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. The analyst firm also predicted the recent flurry of managed security product launches, as well as acquisitions and partnerships, demonstrates that managed services service providers are strategically positioning themselves to take advantage of this market.

“In the past, spending on managed security was like buying an insurance policy, something that is good to have,” said Ho. “This mindset has changed as enterprises realised that the threats out there are real but, more importantly, the chronic shortage of skilled security professional has made the need to adopt managed security services even more compelling.”

Gartner argued the client computing world is increasingly in conflict, as individuals empowered by technology in their personal lives are increasingly pitted against struggling IT departments concerned about security and compliance. The analyst firm claimed that the boundary between personal and enterprise computing is becoming blurred and organisations should treat all network access as potentially hostile and apply appropriate security technologies and policies.

Robin Simpson, research director and co-chair of the Gartner IT Security Summit for Gartner said new rules are needed to allow enterprise IT assets and functions to coexist with employees’ personal digital assets.

“The traditional response from the IT department was to say ‘no’, but ... you can’t hold back the changes being driven by your user population by force, or they will simply conspire against you. But you can’t just relax control. You need to find a way to delineate between the business and personal computing worlds so they can work side-by-side and the boundary can be secured,” said Simpson.