Fortinet maintains market lead in unified threat management market - Gartner

Unified threat management market increases by one fifth to $1.2bn

The global market for unified threat management' (UTM) software and appliances increased by 19.6 per cent to reach $1.2bn (£743m) in 2011, according to analyst group Gartner.

It suggests that Fortinet remains market leader with a share of 19.6 per cent after increasing sales by one third in 2011.

SonicWALL, Juniper Networks, CheckPoint Software and WatchGuard complete the top five vendors. SECUI, however, was the fastest growing vendor, with sales increasing 58.8 per cent to $52m, putting it in eighth place, just behind Cisco and Sophos.

"The UTM market is in the midst of a transition of customers from older technologies, such as stateful firewall inspection, to the latest next-generation firewall technology supporting application control capabilities," said Lawrence Pingree, research director at Gartner.

He added: "Many UTM vendors delivered new products in the last several years, with some vendors performing product refresh efforts to their UTM portfolios, while others worked to expand their small or midsize business (SMB) offerings and wireless UTM offerings."

Demonstrating, perhaps, the strength of the Asian market, Gartner attributed SECUI's fast growth to its strength in the Asia/Pacific market. In 2012, it will be targeting the US market, which remains the biggest single market worth $431m, according to the analyst firm.