Internet service providers (ISPs) must offer managed security solutions to the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, if they want to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
This is according to Dominique Honnay, SonicWALL director of emerging markets and EMEA distribution, who explains that the number of service providers in SA is set to increase, particularly ISPs, telcos and integrators that are expanding their services in order to provide added value.
Honnay says evolving security threats, employee productivity and bandwidth monitoring have become key SME challenges. He explains that security services are the low-hanging fruit in the managed service provider industry.
“The challenge for SMEs is that few of them have the skills or the financial resources available to manage their IT in-house, yet have the same demands as their larger counterparts. It makes more sense for SMEs to outsource their security requirements to a specialist that can offer them multiple IT services at a lower cost.”
“Managed security services and technologies used to be exclusive to banks and large corporates. However, these are now available to SMEs that are looking for simplification and can focus on their core business.
“With all the latest threats coming into the network, as well as social networks, VOIP, streaming media and multiple devices connecting to the network, companies need to know what applications are being downloaded onto the network and who is doing what.”
According to research firm Gartner, during the past 12 months, the European managed security services market grew as anticipated, and would probably have reached $2.5 billion by end-2011. Gartner forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 14% from 2011 to 2015.
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