CIOIN

Gartner is predicting that corporate spending across the world for a broad swath of security services will climb from about $35 billion today to $49 billion in three years, with the managed security services expected to jump most of all.

Managed security services called "IT management" will grow from about $8 billion today to $14.8 billion in 2015. Other segments, such as security consulting, are also expected to thrive, with consulting rising from $9.6 billion today to $12.1 billion in 2015.

Gartner research director Lawrence Pingree predicted telecommunications providers will continue to be among the larger players in managed security services around the world, which hit $6.87 billion last year.

Factors such as desire to economize and the difficulty in establishing round-the-clock personnel coverage for security will continue to drive corporate adoption of managed security services but it's the small-to-mid-sized companies that are exhibiting demand in particular now, Pingree says.

North America is the largest market for security services overall, which Gartner says includes development and integration, plus software support and hardware maintenance and support. This is usually tied to purchases of hardware and software, Pingree says. He adds that cloud-based security services — known as security as a service — are not included in this report.

The North American security services market is expected to surpass $14.6 billion next year and grow to $19 billion in 2015. Western Europe is projected to reach $11.9 billion next year and $14.4 billion in 2015. The Asia/Pacific region is forecast to reach $4.7 billion in 2012 and total $7 billion in 2015.