Internet Security Solutions

For the past couple of years, we've seen a see-saw battle between Cisco and Check Point. Last year, the winner was Check Point, while before that, it was Cisco. So this year, the sine wave returns to Cisco. We wonder if it will be Check Point again next year. It looks a little tough because this time, Check Point has slipped much more than before. But then, this market is always full of surprises. 

Symantec moves up three notches to settle down at number three position, with Trend Micro following close behind.

Interestingly, McAfee didn't even manage to remain in the rankings this year. We really wonder what could have happened there. Microsoft's ISA Server slips down to the last position. One thing that's different this time than last year is that the UPI indices have gone up for most of the brands. While everyone barring the first two were hovering around the 30's and below, this time, they've moved up to 40's. All this just goes to show the action in this market. 

Of all the brands, Trend Micro seems to enjoy the maximum brand loyalty in this space. Sitting at 90% brand loyalty, the only minor competition it has to worry about is from Cisco and Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft faces the maximum threat. Almost 16% of its existing customers want to shift each to either Check Point or Cisco Internet security solutions. The maximum traffic of brand shifting is towards Cisco. Everybody in the club, and even the Others have some percentage of customers who want to shift to Cisco. It's interesting to see a company known for its routers to be considered as a security company as well. Though Check Point enjoys equal brand loyalty as Cisco, there's more movement of customers towards Cisco than the other way around. 

Brand Shift (%) 2003

Linux/BSD based solutions are becoming popular. Though they've slipped two ranks this time, their UPI has gone up over last year. The break-ups of brand preference across different regions is interesting. This is one of the few segments where the winner doesn't dominate all regions. For instance, in the western region, it was Linux/BSD based security solutions that got the top preference. This was followed by Symantec. In the east, there was no single dominant player, as most of the key players shared

similar votes.