Right On Top

In a recent report, Gartner predicted that the worldwide security software
market will touch a total of $14.5 billion, amounting to a total of eight
percent increase in 2009. For 2010, it predicted that the market will grow
further and ensured a 13 percent increase, as revenue is expected to total
around $16.3 billion. On the domestic front, the Indian market, verticals such
as government, education, BFSI, and telecom are now being regarded by vendors as
the biggest spenders on network security.

Threat # 1

The figures are music to ears of software security vendors, but it only
means that enterprises are becoming more and more vulnerable. For enterprises,
security threats pour in from all directions. These could be in the form of
unauthorized access, malicious misuse, virtual insiders (by planting a Trojan
inside the infrastructure to obtain information), viruses, data leakage, online
fraud, phishing, and access attacks. Though security threats remain almost the
same year on year, they simply assume new avatars every time they appear.

Elaborating on the same, Amit Nath, Country Manager-India and SAARC, Trend
Micro said, "One of the biggest threats is malware. Historically, cybercriminals
have continued to advance their malware development skills, and the security
industry has responded with new technologies to combat threats. Most recently,
however, cybercriminals have exploited an inherent weakness in the traditional
approach to protection. As content security companies discover new threats and
develop countermeasures, this newly acquired threat knowledge must be deployed
to all protected computers and networks. Even if the threat discovery process
could keep up with the increasing volume of new threats, eventually it becomes
logistically overwhelming to deploy updated protection throughout the world."

2009: An Overview

In 2009, there were various developments in the security market right from
product upgrades to acquisitions of niche players; a fresh approach of the
leading players towards the market; and so on. The products slice, which in
absolute terms was pegged at Rs 1,304 crore in the last fiscal, constituted 66
percent of the total Indian security market. While anti-virus or firewall (part
of network security) markets had already matured and even over-saturated as more
and more organizations woke up to the security threats around them, the market
was getting more competitive around newer products.

Within the network security space there are three broad categories-firewall,
SSL VPN gateway, and the IDS/IPS (intrusion detection and prevention systems).
Cisco was a clear market leader in this space, followed more or less in order of
marketshare by CheckPoint, Juniper, SonicWall, Fortinet, and McAfee. However,
local vendors like Elitecore (Cyberroam) and Gajshield were also quite strong,
especially among SMBs.

Even though awareness among SMBs was seen to be increasing as they felt the
growing threat to their data, the truth is that this awareness was not
translated into active deployment of solutions. Budget constraints coupled with
ineffective information security management at the operational level seemed to
remain the stumbling blocks.

SPs to Security Consultants

As customers have continued to invest in security therefore, solution
providers (SPs) are looking at this space with renewed interest. An important
fact is that partners need to have clarity in the requirement of the
organization where they intend to deploy solutions. Therefore, the question that
remains is whether the partners have enough knowledge to offer the right kind of
consultation services to the customers.

Kartik Sahani, Regional Director, McAfee feels that SPs are yet to learn
about more complex and newer technologies that are foraying into the market but
they are quite adept at offering most solutions that have been around for a
while. "Technologies such as network IP and gateway solutions, partners are well
geared towards offering this to the customers. They are well-prepared to sell it
in the market," he elaborated.

Talking in a similar vein, Bhaskar Bhaktavatsalu, Country Manager, Checkpoint
Technologies, said "Channel partners need to be more sensitive to the customers
requirements and provide them services that would enable them to realize the
value of the dollar spent on security. More value the customer sees on the table
from the solution provider, greater are his chances of success. Value of
consulting services offered to the customer will enable channel partners to be
designated as an advisor, rather than a partner in security."

Most vendors are carrying out various SP training programs, in order to
address the issues about new technologies in the market and training them to
become security consultants. Elitecore Technologies has two major certification
programs-Cyberoam Certified Network and Security Professional and Cyberoam
Certified Network and Security Expert, while McAfee, too, has various partner
programs, after completion of which, SPs are meted out with certificates and are
graduated into different partner levels-Associate, Premier and Elite.

Nath revealed, "The recently announced Trend Micro 'Worry-Free Remote
Manager' program provides resellers and partners a quick access to sell
SecureCloud services and enables them to remotely manage desktop, server and
messaging security for multiple customers from a single, hosted location."

Elaborating on the subject of vendor interaction with SPs, RS Thirupathy of
Tatva Networks said, "Typically the vendor works on the marketing plan with a
sampling audience before a new product launch or before a conceptualization.
More visibility for the concept and the product is naturally expected from us.
However, we would benefit from a stronger PR house, sharing white papers with
industry leaders, trade shows, seminars on IT security and more sound branding
programs."

Ashok Shiroor, CEO of Delhi-based Microz InfoSecurity opined that he would
like to see a stronger channel disciple and better vendor policies, which would
go a long way in sustaining a smooth flow of business. He suggested that vendors
should introduce buyback offers to increase penetration.

Virtulization: The Future

According to a recent report by Frost and Sullivan, desktop virtualization
market, including hardware, software, licensing, and management tools, is
estimated to have been $79.24 million in 2008 and is expected to grow at a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.31 percent from 2008 to 2015.

Talking about this, B Raghunandan, Consulting Manager-Technical Sales,
Computer Associates opined, "While it is expected to be the number one growth
area for rest of the year, it will probably take 18 months more for
virtualization space to mature in India. Once enterprise datacenters start
deploying critical applications on the virtualized environment, security becomes
a real concern and that is when we will see a real growth for the virtualization
security space.

Sharing thoughts o n virtualization, Ashish Khushu, VP-Services Business,
Enabling Technologies and HR, Apara Enterprise Solutions said, "Virtualization
at the security level is one of the very exciting areas of engagement with the
customer. Until now, security and virtualization were not seen together but as
we move forward I am very confident that customers will start looking at
virtualization of their infrastructure across all these four domains in their IT
Infrastructure. There are very interesting offerings in the market, which will
allow customers to virtualize their security infrastructure."

Madhura Mukherjee

madhurak@cybermedia.co.in