Demand for Certain B2B Security Software Accelerates

B2B security software is growing faster than overall B2B software sales, according to the latest figures from The NPD Group's U.S. B2B Software and Cloud Tracking Service.

NPD is a research firm, and found that security information and event management (SIEM) software grew 26% year to date (January to May). The identity and access management software segment showed an 18% gain for the same time period. B2B indirect software grew 6% in the January to May period of this year when compared to last year. Since 2016, U.S. B2B software sales have shown the steady growth of security software. Security software has grown at a 13% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2016 to 2018, while non-security software grew at a 9% CAGR over the same time period. At the end of 2018, NPD says that security software made up 22% of B2B software sales.

SIEM showed a growth of 26% and both it and the identity & access management (+18%) segment showed a solid growth when year to date figures are considered.

Michael Diamond, industry analysis director of B2B Technology for The NPD Group, thinks that, "There are a number of factors driving information security software sales such as firms needing more sophisticated protection as they operationalize big data strategies, the growth of cloud computing, which drives the need for identity access management, and more predictive analytics, which drives the need for SIEM solutions."

He thinks that security spending will continue to grow. "Software sales will continue to be propelled by increasing cybersecurity threats for both businesses and consumers, data center automation, and the growth of hardware based products, such as next generation firewalls," he said.

NPD looked at hardware sales, as well. They found that the PC market was up 13%, enterprise storage (which includes hyperconverged systems) was up 8%, and all-flash arrays saw a gain of 11% during the same year.

Security spending on software is growing, and it looks like a trend that will continue.

— Larry Loeb has written for many of the last century's major "dead tree" computer magazines, having been, among other things, a consulting editor for BYTE magazine and senior editor for the launch of WebWeek.