Campbell, CALIFORNIA, June 25, 2009—Communications market research firm Infonetics Research released the 1Q09 edition of its Network Security Appliances and Software report. Highlights follow.

ANALYST NOTE

“Many IT markets hit bottom in the first quarter of 2009, and the network security market felt the pinch, hitting its lowest level since early 2007. The cuts were due mainly to budgeting delays, a decrease in security spending attached to network infrastructure spending, contraction in overall enterprise spending due to the recession, and slightly cautious carrier spending. By the end of 2009, we expect the network security market to be back at roughly third quarter of 2008 levels. All in all, this was a painful but fairly minor hiccup, not a massive correction,” said Jeff Wilson, Infonetics Research’s Principal Analyst for Network Security.

NETWORK SECURITY MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• Worldwide network security appliance and software revenue sequentially dropped 16% in 1Q09, to $1.23 billion
• SMB spending is likely to come back faster than enterprise spending; it takes SMBs less time to get budgets in place, and in many cases they still buy security products reactively
• Cisco remains the revenue-leading vendor overall with 37.9% of total network security appliances and software in 1Q09, but is losing ground

  • Juniper, Check Point and Fortinet all gained market share in 1Q09

• Most of the SSL VPN spending that did not happen in 1Q09 will probably happen before 1Q10
• Worldwide intrusion detection and intrusion prevention system (IDS and IPS) product revenue sequentially decreased 21% in 1Q09, on the heels of record high revenue in 3Q08 and 4Q08