Cisco is #1 in appliance sales

Network World published an interesting story about Cisco’s attempts to keep the number 1 spot in sales of network security gear. (note that I emphasise the words sales).

The article includes several security pies, the kind I like. it also include an analysis of best of breed versus good enough sales.

In my opinion the article is missing one important factors: The departure of Nokia from the network security appliance market.

Cisco is indeed the undisputed leader in sales for the security appliances market. It’s retired PIX firewall was all times best seller. People simply liked the way it worked. The more recent acquisition of IronPort gave it a powerful weapon in the e-mail security market and it also allows Cisco to claim some DLP capabilities. Cisco is also #1 in sales of IPS gear. Take a look at the left pie. While there’s a huge market share belongs to the “other” vendors, Cisco’s slice is bigger than the combined slices of Juniper, Check Point, Nokia and Microsoft!

The other pies show how Cisco rules the network security market (again, in sales).  While the article does not mention emerging market it focus on the main.

The Security Pie

The pies that were provided by Network world also include large slices for Nokia and it also list Check Point. In my opinion, part of the reason Check Point has maintained its marketplace position was Nokia, more specifically , the Nokia appliances. While Check Point partners with other appliance makers, such as Crossbeam Systems, Nokia systems (which used to come from the successful Ipsilon Networks acquisition) was always favored (it probably requires deserves a separate post on how to build appliances).

In my opinion, the pie will be changed: On 29 September 2008, the mobile communications provider Nokia announced that it is negotiating to sell its network security appliance business unit to an unnamed financial investment firm. The plan is part of an overall Nokia move away from enterprise IT channels. (See also Gartner: Nokia’s Planned Security Sale Will Not Benefit Customers. PDF available here).

My prediction: next year’s pie will look different but not very different. I expect that the vendors that can execute well (i.e. Cisco) will be able to increase their market share.