10 Oct 2006

By Vivian Yeo, ZDNet Asia
Monday , October 09 2006 07:09 PM

Medium-sized businesses in Malaysia and Singapore are spending more in security and storage than any other market segments, according to a new report released Friday.

Conducted by AMI-Partners and commissioned by Symantec, the study estimated that Malaysia’s security market will grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36 percent to reach US$10.8 million in 2010. The country’s storage market is expected to see a CAGR of 25 percent, reaching US$36.7 million in 2010.
In Singapore, AMI-Partners expects the storage market for midsize businesses to grow at a CAGR of 21 percent, reaching US$17.9 million by the end of 2010. The security market follows closely with a CAGR of 20 percent, with an estimated market value of US$13.2 million in 2010.

The two market segments are expected to outperform other market segments such as Internet, networking and software, which are forecast to grow between 7 percent and 14 percent in both countries.

The study findings polled 101 midsize companies in Singapore, and 150 midsize companies in several Malaysian states including Johor, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak, according to Raju Chellam, AMI-Partners’ Asia-Pacific vice president.

Chellam noted that in both countries, the awareness and uptake of storage applications and technologies, such as IP-SAN (Internet Protocol storage area network) and online backup, were still relatively low. As such, there are still market opportunities left untapped, he said.

Bill Robbins, Symantec’s senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific region, said the vendor will intensify its efforts in the mid-market space for both security and storage.

He added that the number of midsize businesses “continues to grow”, particularly in this region, and said the mid market “has become even more critical” for Symantec. The security giant, which added storage to its portfolio with the acquisition of Veritas in December 2004, will target this market segment through dedicated midsize business applications, product bundling and partnerships with technology vendors and sales channels, Robbins said.

For now, Symantec will cater to the needs of enterprise customers in the area of desktop and server security, and data backup and availability. Robbins pointed out that mobile security is currently “more an issue in the larger enterprise space” but expects it to “cascade” into the small and midsize business space in future.

Symantec is also working toward having “a full identity management solution in place”, he added.