Solution Providers Differ On Market Opportunities

While some security solution providers said they encounter plenty of customers in need of firewalls and the VPNs that typically accompany them, others find that most enterprises already have their security infrastructures in place.

"I have not come across someone who doesn't have a reasonable firewall architecture in three years," said Paul Rohmeyer, COO of Icons, a North Brunswick, N.J.-based security consulting firm. "Some of the regulatory pressures might have caused companies to get firewalls in quickly, so not much out there is a clean slate."

Icons primarily serves financial services organizations, which are highly regulated and therefore already have firewalls, he said.

There are still opportunities in the firewall market, but they've shifted from new installations to assessments of existing architectures, Rohmeyer said.

However, Michelle Drolet, CEO of Conqwest, Holliston, Mass., said there are still many companies that don't have firewalls. Or, they may be a distributed organization with just one firewall, she said. "Adding additional firewalls,that's going to be key, and connecting all these remote users," Drolet said.

Many companies still are looking to switch from expensive frame relay networks to VPNs, and that represents a huge opportunity, she added.

Tom Shaw, president and CEO of Wide Area Management Services (WAMS), a Santa Clara, Calif.-based systems integrator, said that while most of the companies in the enterprise market have already deployed firewalls and VPNs, he's seeing an increased need for the technology among companies in the retail sector. Retail companies and chains are looking to provide connectivity to their individual stores, he said.

Yet the firewall/VPN market can be tough because it's saturated with solution providers, making for highly competitive bidding and less lucrative sales, said Kevin Jackson, vice president of sales at Corsa Network Technologies, Campbell, Calif.

On the plus side, the technology is well-understood by customers, and that makes it "a very easy message," to sell, he said.

Sales of NetScreen Technologies' firewall/VPN appliances make up the bulk of Corsa's business.

Worldwide VPN and firewall hardware and software revenue totaled $2.7 billion last year, according to Infonetics Research. And that figure is projected to reach $5 billion in 2006, the research firm said.

Appliances and routers will carry that growth this year because of large site-to-site and broadband VPN deployments and related firewall requirements, the company said.