IAM market tipped for 2010 growth

Posted by Jessie Richards

The worldwide identity and access management (IAM) market is expected to see an eight per cent growth rate over the next year, IT services users have been told.

Research carried out by IT industry analyst Gartner predicted that revenues for IAM services and products will increase from $9.2 billion (£6.1 billion) in 2009 to around $9.9 billion by the end of 2010.

Ruggero Contu, principal research analyst at Gartner, commented: "Although the economic downturn has affected the IAM market, it is proving to be fairly resilient and, along with other security areas, IAM continues to receive higher prioritisation compared with other technologies."

He claimed that firms are increasingly recognising IAM as an essential element of their security strategy, with around eight per cent of security budgets dedicated to the technology.

The report also found that suite-based IAM solutions are currently the preferred deployment of the technology, although software-as-a-service and cloud computing versions are expected to become more popular.

Recently, Ironkey chief executive David Jevans claimed that authentication and data security technologies are among the best precautions to protect virtualised systems.