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Anti-Virus Market Going Strong – For Now
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2006-06-27
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
If you're looking to make some money, the anti-virus market is a good place to be. Global anti-virus software revenues reached $4 billion in 2005, which constitutes a 13.6 percent over 2004 sales. Continued growth is expected in the short term.
As reported by The Register, the Gartner research firm released its figures on the anti-virus field. 86 percent of the "mature" market was snapped up by a combination of Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro. Of these three leaders, Symantec trounced the competition, holding onto a 53.6 percent market share. McAfee and Trend Micro came in second and third, with 18.8 percent and 13.8 percent, respectively.
Panda Software experienced the greatest growth for the year, enjoying a 23.9 percent bump. The company, based in Spain, still only controlled 3.2 percent of the market, however.
Although that market should continue to grow in the near future, Gartner had some less enthusiastic predictions for further out. "The market for stand alone anti-virus and anti-spyware products for businesses and consumers will eventually start to decline as interest for end-point security product suites continues to grow," said Gartner principal research analyst Nicole Latimer-Livingston.
And Latimer-Livingston anticipated that one company in particular might have a powerful impact. "Microsoft's entry into the consumer anti-virus market is expected to unleash stronger price competition, which will likely lower the overall market revenue opportunity."
As John Leyden (of The Register) suggests, you can find more of Gartner's data at the "prosaically titled Market Share: Anti-virus (Enterprise and Consumer), Worldwide, 2005." But, essentially, the anti-virus business is and will be a good business - at least until Microsoft shows up.
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About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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