'Security spending remained a priority for organizations in 2005, and the industry will continue to experience strong growth for the next few years, as compliance and government regulations continue to play a significant role in security spending decisions,' says Nicole Latimer-Livingston, principal research analyst at Gartner.

'Currently, the major technology trend is moving in the direction of endpoint security suites of products. The market for individual desktop security products is converging, and the market opportunity for stand-alone, signature-based anti-virus products, stand-alone anti-spyware products and stand-alone personal firewalls is limited. Because of the changing threat landscape, security software vendors will need to include more functionality at a more competitive price,' she adds.

Symantec continued to lead the security software market in 2005, as its market share totalled 32.2 percent of worldwide revenue. Symantec continued to be the dominant vendor in the anti-virus segment, as its sales accounted for 53.6 percent of the market.