‘Magic Quadrant’ report identifies IT threat management leaders
Research by Gartner Inc. highlights increased focus and spending on UTM worldwide. The new ‘Gartner, Magic Quadrant, Unified Threat Management, UTM, Watchguard, Middle East, Africa, Channel Post MEA)’ report names leading solution providers, based on two criteria – completeness of vision and ability to execute.
A previous study from the research firm reported that worldwide UTM revenue reached $1.2 billion in 2011, which was a 19.6 per cent increase from 2010 revenue of $972 million.
Closer to home, Middle East and Africa UTM revenue topped $28m in the same year, up by 13.5 per cent from $25m in 2010. Growth in the region was driven by a mixture of ‘transformational government projects, high-speed Internet connectivity adoption and a heavier reliance of regional SMBs using Internet access to conduct business’, according to Gartner.
WatchGuard, a UTM vendor and business security solutions provider, was one such ‘leader’ named in the report.
“We’ve never been more excited about the market opportunity Unified Threat Management presents to our customers, our company and our investors, and we are honoured to again be positioned in the leaders’ quadrant,” says Dave R. Taylor, Vice President of Corporate Strategy at WatchGuard. “We are focused on delivering a best-of-breed experience to our customers. This report recognises the emphasis we continually place on ensuring customer success.”
The leaders quadrant contains vendors at the forefront of making and selling UTM products that are built for mid-size business requirements. The requirements necessary for leadership include a wide range of models to cover midsize business use cases, support for multiple features, and a management and reporting capability that’s designed for ease of use.
A performance test from Miercom confirmed that WatchGuard’s UTM offering (XTM 850) is nearly 3.5 times faster than competitive solutions, when all standard UTM features are enabled.
The security appliance market in the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMA) region recorded healthy double-digit growth of 22.5 per cent year on year in 2011, to total $532.90 million. According to the latest data from market research and advisory company IDC, the main driver of the market’s expansion was growing demand for network security appliances.
Security appliance shipments have increased to 9.4 per cent over Q4 2012, to a total of 20,754 units, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) security appliance market recorded year-on-year growth in both customer revenue and shipments in the final quarter of 2012, according to the latest figures released today by International Data Corporation (IDC). IDC’s ‘Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker’, showed that customer revenues were up by 8.3 per cent when compared to Q4 2011, to reach $90.79 million.
The report also notes that vendors in the ‘leaders’ quadrant also have a ‘good track record of avoiding vulnerabilities’ in their security products and that the UTM industry continues to grow, fuelled by the refreshes of first-generation technologies and the growth of SMEs in emerging markets.
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