The worldwide market for information security services will nearly triple to US$21 billion by 2005, up from about $6.7 billion in 2000, according to new research released Thursday by International Data Corp. (IDC)The boom in the market will be driven by corporate desires for wireless access, extranets and remote networks because new and greater security services will be needed to secure those technologies, the study said.
The financial services industry, with its emphasis on reliability and speed, as well as its need to conform to government regulation, will be the leading customer for these services, spending $2.2 billion, IDC said. Financial services companies spent $848 million on such services in 2000, the study said. Small businesses, because of their projected rapid uptake of high-bandwidth technologies, will also be another major area for information security services, the research found.
IDC also sees the market for these services growing particularly fast in the Asia/Pacific, Latin American and western European regions. The Asia/Pacific market, driven by Internet adoption in mobile phones and other devices, as well as the spread of cybercafes, will account for a large chunk of the market at nearly 30 percent, IDC said.
IDC is a subsidiary of International Data Group Inc., the parent company of IDG News Service.