Enterprises are yet to shed inhibitions and go whole hog for security solutions. Almost all the big global players in the network security solutions and product market are there in India either directly or through channel partners. Every second network integrator claims to provide network security-related services, be it consulting or network architecture design or plain product deployment. Despite all this, the network security solutions/products (and what is called security appliance market) could not cross the Rs 150 crore in the year 2001-02. This figure has been arrived at by putting together inputs from vendors, resellers and some of the leading network integrators, and includes anti-virus software, firewalls (software and hardware), IDS as well as some amount of authentication, encryption and digital certification products.

It is our as well as the industry’s view that the network security market in India has long been dominated by anti-virus software and firewalls. And it was no different in 2001-02. This is largely because of the fact that network security in India is still mostly anti-virus software and firewall-centric.

However, this does not mean that there was no market for advanced security solutions like PKI. Some major deals in authentication solutions were also reported. Moreover, following the growing international trend, security appliances too became popular with enterprises in the Indian market, with vendors like Nokia Internet Communications, Cisco, Symantec and Net Secure making their presence felt in the security appliance market in a big way. PKI and digital certificates made their presence felt after the government put in the legal infrastructure for e-commerce transactions in place.

Banking, financial services companies and multinationals remained the biggest buyers of security products in India. They were also the ones who looked beyond anti-virus and firewall while securing their networks. Defense organizations were one of the biggest buyers of network security products in the country. And if we club them with the public sector banks, then government was easily the largest vertical for network security products.

The main factors inhibiting the growth of network security market in India were the unwillingness of most of the enterprises to invest in security beyond a certain point, lack of trust on outside agencies, and lack of quality security skills.

This year, with the increase in bandwidth availability and with more and more organizations looking at remote office management, VPN could offer a large opportunity. VPN could grow on account of service providers using abundant bandwidth in shared mode with over provisioning because of the pressure on bandwidth prices. Dial-up VPN is already picking up. Moreover, host-based security systems like IDS and content inspection are also likely to pick up. With VoIP getting a new push with Internet telephony, voice encryption could be another opportunity. Growth in e-commerce transactions is also like to fuel expansion.

Source: VOICE&DATA Networking Masters May 2002