While the rest of the world slumped, the North American network and content security product market ticked up a bit in the first quarter, according to Infonetics Research's first quarter "Content Security Gateway Appliances, Software and SaaS" and "Network Security Appliances and Software" market reports.
McAfee led the worldwide content security market in Q1, followed closely by Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Blue Coat and Websense (Nasdaq: WBSN), who came within one point of each other on market share. For network security, Cisco held the lead--and one-third of global revenue--among equipment vendors, with CheckPoint (Nasdaq: CHKP) and Juniper (NYSE: JNPR) trailing.
It was, with the exception of the North American market, a typical first quarter which will be followed with a typical rest of the year of "moderate growth in both network and content security product sales as major vendors manage a transition from selling products to selling products and hosted services, and as customers continue to sort out their long-term strategies that blend hardware, software and hosted services," Jeff Wilson, principal analyst for security said in a news release.
The reports also noted as-expected first quarter weakness for network security appliances and software but predicted that "most network security vendors (will be) up 5% to 15% in 2Q12."
For more:
- see this news release
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