Market forecasts made by researchers with International Data Corp suggest that integrated hardware appliances will next year become the primary purchase target for enterprises buying security software.

The firewall/virtual private network (VPN) security appliance market maintained a healthy growth rate of 34% from 2000 to 2001 and exceeded the $1bn mark in vendor revenue, the market researchers report.

Netscreen Technologies Inc, SonicWall Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Nokia Internet Communications all sell high-speed integrated security appliances that host a variety of Virtual Private Network (VPN), firewall, anti-virus or content-filtering applications in a single unit. WatchGuard Technologies Inc also figures in the sector after it acquired RapidStream Inc, another supplier of high-speed security appliances.

Sales of these integrated security appliances have risen recently as organizations have recognized the ease of their deployment, even as remote sites where technical skills can be scarce. IDC's research confirmed that the top three security technologies currently being rolled out include anti-virus, firewall software and hardware-based firewall appliances.

It also estimated that the growth rate for the network intrusion-detection software appliance market nearly doubled that of the firewall/VPN market growth at 62% in 2001.

Confirming the favorable outlook for the sector, security bellwether Symantec Corp last week reaffirmed its projections for fiscal third-quarter revenue of $335m with fiscal year expectations running to a revenue of $1.33bn. The company plans to bolster its intrusion-detection products in 2003, after its recent acquisition of Recourse Technologies.

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