A new report from Gartner says that the revenue for security software around the world will exceed $16.5 billion in 2010, which represents a growth of 11.3 percent from last year. In comparison, the security software market grew 7 percent in the midst of the global economic slowdown last year to reach $14.8 billion in revenue.

Gartner also predicts that this increase will also see a replacement of traditional software licensing models by software-as-a-service and security appliances. In fact, these two categories of products are expected to become the preferred purchasing methods, according to a senior research analyst at Gartner. On the enterprise front, compliance is expected to be a key driver in spending.

In a statement, Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner said, "Overall, security will remain one of the fastest-growing areas within the enterprise software market." 

The increase in spending sounds reasonable, given the increasing number of security incidents. Ultimately, security is more than about purchasing software or deploying more appliances. As evidenced by the fact that many companies are not well equipped in defending against social engineering schemes, there is a need for organizations to put more funding toward training.

The Gartner report is titled, "Forecast Analysis: Security Software Markets, Worldwide, 2009-2014, 2Q10 Update," and can be accessed here if you are a Gartner client.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Dark Reading
- see this article at Information Week

Related Articles:
Security vulnerabilities continue to inundate software vendors
Forrester: Recession causing software auditors to crack down hard 
New study says cybercrime costs enterprises $3.8 million a year