The market for managed wireless security services will more than triple in size over the next five years, experiencing a recession-resistant compound annual growth rate of 27 percent from 2008 to 2014, and exceeding $1 billion by the end of that period.
"The managed wireless security services growth rate is quite dramatic," said Stan Schatt, VP of ABI Research. "It's due to the explosive growth of large WLAN deployments. As these grow, organizations in certain markets such as health care and hospitality are finding it more efficient to outsource their security management rather than to do it themselves. That's particularly true of institutions that have many smaller branches without trained IT personnel."
There is also what Schatt terms an opportunity among small and mid-sized businesses: as they increase their Wi-Fi usage, they see great benefit in having their wireless security - especially wireless video surveillance - managed for them.
These managed services are being provided by a variety of companies: some WLAN equipment companies such as Cisco Systems, and some resellers of intrusion protection systems from companies such as AirMagnet and Airtight Networks. In the future, these will be joined by the large professional services companies such as HP and IBM. Mobile operators and other telecoms will also be giving this market a great deal of attention: AT&T is already active in this sphere.
"Managed service providers can address this market more effectively by including support for wireless video surveillance in their offerings, including portals for review of surveillance tapes and activity reports," Schatt said.