Monday, 16 October 2006

Security, Storage Fastest Growing IT Segments in Singapore and Malaysia

Security and storage have been identified as the fastest growing IT segments in the mid-market in Singapore and Malaysia, according to a study commissioned by Symantec. According to the study, the security segment for mid-sized companies is growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.8 percent in Singapore and 36.3 percent in Malaysia. The storage segment for mid-sized companies is growing at a CAGR of 21.4 percent and 24.4 percent in Singapore and Malaysia respectively. The key drivers fuelling this growth in Singapore and Malaysia were identified as information security, compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

The study determined that the majority of mid-sized companies understand the benefits of data security and storage with 78 percent of respondents choosing to enhance their data security and privacy using firewall, encryption and anti-virus solutions. 72 percent of companies are also deploying some form of in-house or hosted data back-up and disaster recovery solutions.

"The security and storage segments in the mid-market are growing faster than areas such as IT services, computing, Internet, networking and software," says Raju Chellam, vice president, AMI-Partners (Asia-Pacific). "The strong double-digit growth in storage and security are driven by factors such as a need for greater information security, compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity planning."