“Security spending in Europe will remain healthy in 2007 among enterprises and SMBs alike, with enterprises leading the charge,” said Bill Nagel, one of the authors of the report. “Nearly 80% of those firms that are already using security software plan to upgrade or add to that software this year. This means that the robust spending on security we’ve seen in the past two years will continue.”

Among the report’s findings:

  • Fifty-six percent of IT decision-makers at European enterprises — companies with more than 1,000 employees — named upgrading their security environment and business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) capabilities as their top priorities in 2007.
  • SMBs’ primary interests lie elsewhere. Purchases of new PCs, purchasing or upgrading BC/DR capabilities, and consolidating the IT infrastructure all attracted more attention from SMBs than security environment upgrades.
  • Above all else, make it easy. Ease of management tops the overall list of factors that all European firms consider when making security technology purchasing decisions: 80% of respondents felt it was important or very important.
  • Network security technology buying will stay healthy. Many European SMBs will be making investments in network security through mid-2007 — nearly half will purchase or upgrade a network firewall. And more than one-third of them will buy or upgrade intrusion prevention and detection technologies (IPS and IDS), content security technologies, and gateway antivirus appliances.

The report “The State Of Security In SMBs And Enterprises” is currently available to Forrester RoleView™ clients and can also be purchased directly at http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,41257,00.html

Security spending will be among the topics discussed at the Forrester Research Security Forum EMEA, April 16-17, 2007 in Amsterdam. The Event features speakers from BT, The United Nations, Toyota Europe, Standard Chartered Bank, Diageo, Novartis, Munich Reinsurance, and the European Patent Office. More information about the Security Forum is available at http://www.forrester.com/events/eventdetail?eventID=1590