SME market drives Australian growth for MessageLabs

MessageLabs has witnessed a strong rise in new business, particularly in the SME market, according to the security vendor’s Asia Pacific vice president.

The firm’s claims came in the wake of a MessageLabs sponsored IDC white paper which found that the vast majority of SMEs think that a serious breach in IT security would be very detrimental to their ability to achieve their stated business objectives.

However, the paper also found very few SMEs are overtly proactive in their fight against a IT security and only eight percent of SME respondents view IT security as a top business priorty.

James Scollay, vice president of Asia Pacific, said Australia has been one of the fastest growing markets in terms of spam and this has driven MessageLabs’ growth.

“We have seen a 128 percent rise in new business and a 225 percent increase in the value of new orders. Most of that growth has come from the SME market,” he said. “Our job is to protect users from commercial threats.”

Scollay said there have been some new techniques developed with spam and the level of spam will increase throughout the year.

“We also predict that virus rates will come down significantly, while threats over instant messenger will come onto the radar this year,” added Scollay.

“Australian firms want a supplier with a local presence, support and someone in the same time zone. This makes a real difference.”